


Where The Fae Sun Rises

by Serafaerosa



Series: Profaecy [2]
Category: Lost Girl
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-29
Updated: 2014-04-25
Packaged: 2017-12-30 21:03:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 34
Words: 104,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1023358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serafaerosa/pseuds/Serafaerosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bo has never faced an adversary like this before. It will take her, it will break her, it will tear her apart. And there’s nothing Bo can do to stop it. How do you beat an adversary when the adversary is yourself? And just who is Bo’s father? AU reimagining of Bo’s Dawning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, here it is, Chapter 1 of Where the Fae Sun Rises, Book 2 of Profaecy. This story has evolved immensely since its conception. It is actually entirely unrecognizable from the original outline I had constructed for it. It's been a trip writing it, and I've loved writing every minute of it. It has been challenging, gruesome, heart wrenching and inspiring to write it, and not least because of the inspiring work that is put into the show by its writers, cast, and crew. There are some huge deviations from the story of course, some less small deviations, and in some parts, I've actually written in some well-loved scenes from the show because they were so damn perfect and because I felt it was important to reinforce or present them from a different perspective than (I at least) had originally viewed them in.
> 
> For all you fellow Doccubus shippers reading this: we are kin in our hopes and dreams for the OTP. Doccubus is and always will be (at least in this series) endgame. There will be hardships, but stick with it, that's what true loyalty is all about. ;)
> 
> Regardless, I am both elated and terrified to share Book 2 of Profaecy with you. Please, I beg you: review, criticize, opine and dream. Your comments mean the world to me, and I'm on the edge of my seat to hear your opinions of this crazy little story. I promise, I will continue posting until the story reaches its end. I won't balk, I will finish what I've started so long as there's even one person out there that wants me to (and I know of at least one, thank you for all your unrelenting support, again, you know who you are!) Thank you to all of you, whether you've left your mark in comment/favorite/kudos-form or not. Whoever you are, I love you. ;) And thank you.
> 
> And now, with one last (less verbose) further ado, I present Where the Fae Sun Rises:
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own Lost Girl; no copyright infringement is intended.
> 
> Once again, my work is unbeta-ed, so any and all mistakes are mine and mine alone.

Bo reveled in mornings like these. The sun trickled in through the heavy drapes that lined her wall, dust motes drifted languidly in the thin shafts of sunlight that fell molten, sweet, and fresh onto the scuffed wooden floors of her bedroom. The sheets rustled, twisted between her legs, and the air was rich and heavy with the warm haze of last night’s love making. Bird song warbled outside the windows, and a breeze brushed against the glass, rattling it gently and providing a tender, organic wake-up call that was made perfect by the sensual sensation of silken legs sliding between hers, and the whisper of hair as it shifted upon the pillow.

A smile curled across her lips, her eyelids fluttered, and a warm, powerful need throbbed between her thighs. She feigned sleep, if only to completely lose herself in the hot, moist kisses that trailed slowly, tantalizingly, down her neck. A tongue swirled in lazy figure eights across her skin, and the mouth that drifted from her earlobe to her shoulder paused to nip teasingly before swooping along her collarbone to continue its pilgrimage once again, from the base of her neck up to the soft, sensitized patch of skin behind her other ear.

Strong, firm fingers skimmed along the curve of one breast, and Bo couldn’t suppress a gasp of pleasure at the sharp, electric sensation of one of her nipples being pinched between forefinger and thumb.

Bo felt a smirk curve the lips of her lover, warm breath ghosted along the shell of her ear, and she wrapped her arms around the woman that shared her bed, the fingers of one hand buried and tangled immediately in the long, thick tresses that cascaded down into her face.

“Good morning,” her lover’s voice, husky with sleep and want, sent shivers down Bo’s spine. Her skin thrummed with pleasure, warmth flooded the space between her thighs again, throbbing with hungry, aching desire. Silky lips closed over her earlobe, and Bo sucked in a sharp breath when a tongue gently, teasingly, flicked the soft, tiny fold of skin between pinching teeth.

“Good morning, indeed,” Bo murmured back. Her hand tightened around the curls clenched between her fingers, and she rolled in bed to trap her lover beneath her. Their lips met and fastened as Bo moved, and she shifted her weight to one side, rolling her hips against her lover’s, and pulled one leg up to bury her thigh in the slick heat that trickled and dripped between her lover’s legs. Her tongue slid across pliant lips, gasping with pleasure and swelling already with the passionate kisses Bo massaged into them, and they opened for her: hot, and humid and ready to be completely plundered. One strong arm wrapped around Bo, the other pressed between their chests, and a delicate touch brushed her cheekbone.

Bo pulled a hair’s breadth away, her eyes fluttered open, and she smiled into the adoring, feather-light kisses her lover touched briefly to her lips. They finally fell away, and a pair of dazzling, deep green eyes looked up at her, sleepy and blissful and hooded with want.

“Breakfast?” her Thrall’s voice was breathy and electric with the desire that flared in a white hot aura around the slender, silken body writhing beneath Bo’s powerful touch.

“That,” Bo dug her fingers into the trembling, muscled thigh between her own legs and pulled it up against the heat that coiled and pulsed there, “is why you are my favorite.”

A low, sharp gasp escaped Inari at the sensation of slick heat sliding down her smooth, warm skin. Bo’s lips curled into a satisfied smirk, her head dipped to the arching curve of Inari’s neck where she blazed her own trail of hot, wet kisses and playful nips. Inari’s porcelain skin was so soft beneath Bo’s lips, and the way it flushed immediately under her mouth sent a hot shiver of arousal down Bo’s spine that gathered and culminated in the sensitive bundle of nerves that throbbed with every urgent rhythmic thrust of Inari’s hips against her own, with every sliding movement of Inari’s thigh pressed tightly against her hot, dripping walls. With every thrust, Inari’s smooth skin rubbed deliciously against her, and every touch, every stroke that tapped the sensitive nub of her clitoris sent a delicious current of hot, quivering ecstasy bursting through her.

Inari gasped in pleasure beneath her, and Bo moaned in reply, their carnal expressions of hedonistic indulgence mingling and melting together in the steamy, shuddering air around them. Thin, delicate fingers tangled and tightened in Bo’s hair, her scalp tingled where Inari tugged, and Inari arched beneath her, pressing her sweat-soaked, gloriously naked body against Bo’s. Hard, pebbled nipples pressed against skin, slender, muscled legs wound and twisted with each other and the sheets and the bed creaked beneath their writhing, cadenced movement.  Beads of sweat slid and slipped along hot, bare flesh. Blue light glowed beneath Bo’s closed eyelids, she raised her head a little to fasten her mouth to Inari’s again, her tongue pushed between Inari’s teeth to coil against Inari’s own.

Inari moaned into the kiss, her hips ground against Bo’s, releasing wave after wave of sizzling, sticky pleasure in them both. The Kitsune cried out in ecstasy at the erotic, carnal sensation of Chi rising, flooding her throat, and passing, sweet and coiling, past her teeth, her lips, and into Bo’s open, wanting mouth. One grasping hand found Bo’s breast, flicked the pebbled mound of her nipple, and her fingers tightened around the firm, silken flesh. She felt, rather than heard, the low, growling groan Bo uttered in response, the guttural echo smothered and lost between lips and tongues and thick, hot, coiling energy. Nails scraped across Bo’s toned shoulders, Inari’s back arched again into the pleasure that shook her small, slender body, and she bucked her hips again against Bo’s with a grunt. Wet heat trickled down the thigh clenched between Bo’s legs, and their bodies parted for a brief, excruciating second as Bo slipped one hand between them.

Sweat gathered and shimmered in a thin film around them. Inari’s Chi tasted like ripe, juicy blackberries to Bo’s hungry mouth. Bo hummed in appreciation, the moan escaping her velvety and husky. It dragged a shiver across Inari’s skin, drawing her ever closer to the epic climax that always left her breathless and spent and hungry for more. She gasped into the kiss and drew herself up to deepen it. Lips skimmed between nipping teeth, tongues pulsed and throbbed against each other, warm, humid breath crashed and gathered in a tantric, erratic beat against cheeks and mouths and thick, mahogany hair that fell in a curling, frizzy waterfall around their faces. Bo’s fingers slid between hot, slick folds, teasing, taunting, there and gone, until Bo buried two digits knuckle-deep into Inari’s throbbing, aching center, and Inari cried out in rapture, her back arched, and she pushed hard into Bo’s hand. Inari rocked herself against the fingers that twisted and curled into the trembling, wildly pulsating walls within her, she bit into Bo’s shoulder and tasted the salty brine of Bo’s sweat on her tongue, the hand that grasped Bo’s breast squeezed tightly, eliciting a sharp gasp from Bo that washed hot air over her shoulder, and her other hand fell to the mattress beneath her, the fingers digging into the dampened silk sheets and her whole body thrumming with screaming, molten bliss. Inari uttered a final cry, muffled beneath the shoulder clenched between her teeth and, jerking riotously against the hand that slammed irregularly in and out of her she fell, finally, dizzy and trembling and careening over the edge.

Bo’s mouth fell on Inari’s again in a searing kiss that made the Kitsune’s eyes roll back in her head, and pulled deliciously, mind-numbingly, at the sweet, erotic Chi Bo feasted on. Every hot, sweaty inch of Inari’s body tingled with pleasure, and though her muscles ached with sweet release and felt heavy and slow, Inari moved against Bo. The thigh still clenched between Bo’s legs writhed, tearing a long, low moan from Bo’s throat that shivered between their melded, swollen lips. Inari pressed the tip of a finger to the slick, swollen bud that bumped and ground against her thigh, and the effect of that gentle touch sent a spasm across Bo’s body that only served to reignite the burning embers of Inari’s lust.

The last, sweet shreds of Inari’s Chi slipped between Bo’s lips. The Succubus glowed with power and sensuality and ground her hips against Inari’s again. The Kitsune’s fingers rubbed deliberately, expertly, against her over-sensitized clitoris, spreading scorching, sticky want over the throbbing bundle of nerves, and ecstasy speared through Bo’s trembling body. She broke their heated kiss, and her eyes, thundering electric blue, connected with Inari’s heavy-lidded, lust-filled gaze. The hungry desire in Inari’s hot stare, the tongue that licked across red, swollen lips and the hot-blooded blush that flushed Inari’s pale, ceramic skin pulled Bo close, dangled her over the edge she’d already thrown Inari over. With a heavy, gasping pant, she arched into the teasing thumb that Inari rubbed dexterously over slick, stiffened skin and jolted violently into the three, rigid fingers that slid deep into her. Sweet release rushed hot and wet, soaking Inari’s fingers, scorching the soft skin with the urgency she had sated. Bo threw her head back, thick, silken curls crashed in a heavy wave around her neck and shoulders, and her eyelids fell with the heady, dizzying climax. Her lips parted, swollen and red, in a final cry of pleasure that tore from her throat and then fell into a low, throaty moan. Bo’s arms trembled, she draped herself across Inari’s heaving chest and pressed a wet kiss to the swell of her lover’s breast. They lay, panting and trembling in one another’s arms for a long, languorous moment, wrapped in an orgasmic haze of sweat, and heat and gratification.

Inari moved to bury herself deeper, lower, in Bo’s arms, and pressed a tender, doting kiss to the nape of Bo’s neck, her mouth humming with satisfaction and absolute, sensual bliss. Slowly, tantalizingly, she withdrew her fingers from Bo’s throbbing center, and with her open, lust-filled stare locked with Bo’s, licked and sucked her hot, sweet climax from her skin. Then they shifted, settling to lie side by side, still tangled in one another and the hot, twisted bed sheets. With a gratified, victorious grin spread wide across her lips, Inari nuzzled further into Bo’s neck, enfolded by the heavy brown curls that draped and mingled with her own bright red locks. Her cleaned, damp fingers hovered along the curves of Bo’s body and dipped into the valley of her waist, feather-light and adoring.

“Again?” Inari murmured into her Mistress’ sweat dampened skin, eliciting a throaty, appreciative chuckle from the Succubus that sent shivers of excitement racing up and down her spine.

Bo’s fingers pulsed with warm energy, she flattened a palm against the small of Inari’s back and curled down to capture Inari’s lips in a long, seductive kiss. When they parted, a current of azure electricity flashed and burned behind rich mahogany eyes, and a smile curled across Bo’s swollen, flushing lips.

“If you insist…” she purred. Her fingers wound again in Inari’s thick, silken scarlet mane, and their mouths crashed together in burning, wanton abandon.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_It was dark. Bo could feel her heart slam against her ribcage, her fingers shook with the resonance of her blood pounding heavy and anxious throughout her whole body. Her lips were dry, she licked them nervously and stepped a little closer to the door that hung open just a sliver, and drew in a deep, faltering breath. Her fingers curled around the edge of the door, her face twisted into an uneasy frown, and she slid the door open a little further._

_A pale ribbon of light streamed in from the hallway, but the room was so dark, all it illuminated was the scuffed wooden floor, a cracked wall, and a pair of discarded black boots, empty and purposeless without the perfect pair of little, elegant feet to fill them. Bo had edged in through the newly widened gap, squinting into the darkness in an attempt to pick out the slender, ballerina figure curled under the sheets within._

_“Kenzi?” she whispered, so softly she was sure she hadn’t been heard. But movement rustled under the sheets, and Bo’s eyes slowly adjusted to the dimness of her best friend’s bedroom. Her nostrils flared nervously, she left the door cracked open behind her and took another, tentative step inside._

_“Kenzi, are you awake?” she spoke a little louder, her voice barely carrying through the cool shadows to the form shifting into wakefulness on the big, four-poster queen-sized bed. Bo could hear the soft, slow intake of a deep breath, and then the tiny, fragile woman curled under her sheets moved into a slumped sit._

_“Yeah, Bo. I’m here,” Kenzi’s voice sounded pale and groggy in the murky darkness. A flash of fair, creamy skin caught Bo’s eye, and a paper-thin wave of relief swelled for an instant through her at the gesture to come in, to join her. Bo slipped to the bedside, her bare feet padding almost silently across the warm, wooden boards, and the bed creaked in protest as she crawled in over the sheets beside her best friend._

_Arms circled her, warm, and thin, and comforting. Bo slipped her legs under the sheets and curled into Kenzi, her own arms winding around her slender body and her face pressed into the warm contours of Kenzi’s neck, where it sloped to her shoulder._

_“I’m so sorry, Kenz,” Bo mumbled into the dark, ruffled locks of hair that tumbled around her face and tickled her nose. Kenzi smelled warm, and thick, and heady, like sleep. “I’m so glad you’re okay,” she whispered softly into the dark, eyes squeezed shut against the painful memories that had plagued her for hours, against the horrifying guilt that twisted like a knife in her gut. Thin fingers stroked Bo’s hair, Kenzi’s breath whispered against her ear, and Bo felt another wave of guilt hit her for waking Kenzi when she’d been needing her rest so badly, because Bo selfishly needed her best friend to tell her that everything was going to be okay._

_The blind darkness of the bedroom weighed heavily on Bo’s shoulders, dense with the silence that followed Bo’s quiet apology. The fingers that brushed through Bo’s hair paused, and Bo wondered, hoped, that Kenzi had only fallen asleep again, that a condemnatory shove wouldn’t follow, that Kenzi wouldn’t hate her for the betrayal, the abandonment she must have felt, trapped and alone in a cave for more than a day._

_When Kenzi spoke again, her words were so cracked, so tired and sad, Bo felt her heart break in her chest._

_“It’s okay, Bo. You needed to help Lauren,” Kenzi’s fingers resumed their soothing rhythm caressing Bo’s hair while she spoke, and Bo pressed herself harder into Kenzi’s thin frame, willing her best friend to know, to understand, how much she loved her._

_“I needed to help you,” Bo’s words splintered with the tears that choked her throat and threatened to spill down her cheeks. It sapped her strength to pull away from Kenzi, but she needed her to see the regret, the love, the relief that dampened Bo’s cheeks and stretched her lips into a twisted, anguished frown. “I needed to help both of you. But I didn’t. I couldn’t.”_

_Bo couldn’t describe to either Kenzi or Lauren what it had been like to feel her humanity depressed into a tiny ball of consciousness that could not act, that did not want to feel. She had known how she felt, had known that she felt the intoxicating pull Lauren had always had on her, had known that she was terrified for Kenzi, but couldn’t commit to it, couldn’t act upon it. She had known that they held the power to make her commit to it. And she had avoided confronting both in order to cling to the part of her that never suffered emotion, that wasn’t human. The longer she remained the monster, the harder she struggled to lose her humanity, because regaining it would ultimately destroy her._

_But seeing Kenzi, dirty, disheveled, and still fighting, had flipped a switch. Instead of struggling to lose her humanity, she struggled to regain it. Even if it meant that regaining it would destroy her. Even knowing that what she’d done would break her._

_Bo stared into Kenzi’s eyes, willing her to understand, knowing that she couldn’t, not really. They glittered in the darkness, unreadable and black under the suffocating shadows of her bedroom. Bo could barely make out the contours of her cheek and the pale outline of her hair falling around her face. Bo’s lips trembled in the oppressive silence, she had to say something, if only to break the tense quiet._

_“I’m so sorry, Kenzi,” Bo’s words were mangled by the regret and self-loathing that tore at her heart, still beating rebelliously in her chest._

_Forgiveness flickered in Kenzi’s opaque eyes, and the beautiful, strong, loyal human leaned in to pull Bo into another tight embrace, quietly hushing the sob that wracked Bo’s body and tightening her arms around the guilt-ridden woman that begged for clemency._

_“It’s okay, Bo,” Kenzi repeated, her words softer, kinder than Bo believed she deserved, “I’m okay. Everything’s gonna be okay.”_

_Bo huddled into Kenzi’s arms, her lips pressed to Kenzi’s warm skin, her eyes squeezed shut against the memory of Kenzi turning up in the dungeon, caked with dirt, her hair tangled and mascara dried in dark runs down her pallid cheeks. “You are my heart, Kenzi,” Bo mumbled, the words tumbling out unbidden but sincere, “I love you, so much…” she trailed off, wishing with every fiber of her iniquitous soul that she could take away all the pain she had caused the woman in her arms and carry it for her._

 


	2. Chapter 2

By the time Bo had finally managed to leave her bed, with Inari lying twisted with the sheets and asleep in a haze of satisfaction and exhaustion, the sun had fully risen in a sky that was crisp and blue and cloudless, and it was already almost noon. She padded barefoot from her bedroom down the waxed hardwood steps, dressed only in a royal purple kimono, and slipped into the sunroom that opened up in the middle of the house. It was awash in light and color, flowers grew along the walls in splashes of pinks, and reds and purples, golds and pale, powdery blues. Ivy curled and wound along the walls and light fixtures, sprawled across the rough, white-washed surface like a lazy cat soaking in the sun. A playful breeze whipped Bo’s thick, ruffled hair and brushed against her skin like the sigh of a lover, and Bo tilted her chin up, eyes fluttering closed, to relish the light, affectionate sensation with the heightened sense that only blindness could offer.

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Aife’s voice carried clearly through the crisp, cool air. She lounged at the small patio table and chairs she and her husband had set up in the corner of the little in-house garden, close by the fountain that bubbled and splashed cheerfully, and sipped at a glass filled with golden tea and hazy cubes of ice. Thin leaves and springs of mint were crushed between the ice and the glass, Bo could imagine how wonderfully refreshing the cold, sweet drink would taste after the steamy affair she’d left slumbering in her bed.

The sound of a newspaper crinkling between large, strong hands drew Bo’s attention as she picked her way carefully over the smooth, warm flagstones that led to the little iron table. Her father lowered his newspaper from his face, his eyes half-concealed behind the flash of reading glasses Bo knew he only wore for style, to smile indulgently and distractedly at his daughter as she approached.

“We were discussing sending Walter upstairs to see if you wanted breakfast, until your mother reminded me you had that well taken care of,” his deep, smooth baritone voice, lilting with the musical intonations of a fading Irish accent, resonated pleasantly in Bo’s chest, she smiled at her daddy and dropped into an empty chair opposite both her parents.

Fruit piled in wooden bowls on the table before her, still dewy from the quick, cold wash they’d been given under the fountain’s sweet, chilled water. Dark red grapes, their skins hazy and tight to bursting with dry, sweet juice, bunched over fuzzy-skinned peaches and ruddy plums. Blueberries scattered amongst raspberries, mixed with blackberries and strawberries and tiny, browning slices of banana mingled in a little glass bowl beside, and a small silver platter of white and yellow cheeses spread invitingly before her. Aife offered her a woven basket of bread. It smelled warm, freshly baked. Bo leaned over the table to accept a small cut before leaning back into her chair and settling her feet over the thick metal wire crisscrossed under the table as a decorative support.

“Inari certainly doesn’t disappoint,” Bo grinned into the tiny bite she took from her bread. Its crust was crisp and crunchy, its meat, soft and warm. She reached for a small slice of yellow cheese and nibbled delicately at its edge.

“Don’t satisfy yourself too much,” Jack looked over the edge of his newspaper again. His dark brown eyes, so like Bo’s own, twinkled with anticipation and domestic contentment, “don’t forget, we have plans at the Dal Riata tonight. To celebrate La Shoshain.”

A smile curled across Bo’s lips, cat-like, almost feral.

“Sweetheart, when have you ever known our daughter to ever be fully satisfied?” Aife’s voice was light, merry, and she sent her daughter a conspiratorial wink.

Bo smiled back and allowed her eyes to flutter closed, her head tilted to the sun, her forearms rested over the cool iron arms of her chair and her hair whispered softly in the gentle, regulated breeze that dipped and riffled through the roofless aviary. Her lungs filled with sweet air, flavored with the light, honeyed aroma of the flora that surrounded her, and she let it out with a deep sigh of contentment. God… life was so good.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_As they withdrew from one another, Bo’s fingers lingered along the mussed strands of Kenzi’s ebony hair, the tips tickled her skin where they brushed. Bo’s lip trembled at the thought that she may have lost her best friend, her sister, forever._

_She needed the contact. Craved it. Ached to curl up beside Kenzi and listen to her slow, regulated breathing while she slept, to bathe in the thick, spiced vanilla smell she exuded while she slumbered. Her chest tightened. She knew losing Kenzi would tear her apart. How could she have left her for so long, alone and neglected, ignored, taken for granted?_

_Kenzi settled back into her pillows and pulled her sheets up to her chin. Even under the heavy blanket of darkness, Bo could see black caverns yawning under her eyes, could see the lines of exhaustion spread across her young face. Kenzi had lied: she wasn’t okay. Nothing was okay. She had given up so much for Bo, had left herself behind somewhere, had given it to Nate to take away with him when he left the city, believing that Kenzi hadn’t loved him._

_Bo swallowed the thick lump that had knotted in her throat, her vision blurred, though she could barely see in the blackness of Kenzi’s bedroom anyway. She shifted in the bed, watching while Kenzi settled herself to go back to sleep, knowing she should leave and allow her best friend to rest. She licked her lips again, dampening the dry, chapped skin and hesitated before slipping her legs off the edge of the bed. The light that fell through the crack in the door looked so cold to her, devoid of the best friend she had forsaken, of the lover she had damaged, of family, of comfort, of all the things that made Bo human._

_“Kenz,” she whispered, falteringly, into the darkness. Her lips pressed together tightly, her fingers dug into the mattress they’d dropped to when Kenzi had pulled away. Her pulse throbbed under her skin like runaway horses beating through sand._

_“Hmm…?” Kenzi was already half-asleep. Bo could hear the whisper of her hair against the pillow as she shifted slightly to get more comfortable, to find the warmth she must have abandoned to embrace Bo, to comfort and console her._

_“Can I sleep here, tonight?” Bo turned away from the silver shaft of light that pierced the familiar, enveloping darkness to look down at the silhouette that curled in soft, accentuated lines on the bed beside her. She hesitated, shy and afraid, but desperate to stay beside her best friend for a little longer, even if only to sleep, and be close, “Please?”_

_Sheets rustled against skin. Kenzi shifted again, her eyes bleary and glistening in the light that reflected from the cracked wall and scuffed wooden floors, and moved to make space for another body beside her. Her arms opened to Bo, looking heavy with the exhaustion that weighed her slender limbs down._

_“Yeah, babe. Of course,” Kenzi’s voice was hoarse, not only with the sleep that eluded her, but with unshed tears and the cavernous ache she’d felt, missing her best friend, wishing Bo would come back for her, “come here.” Bo pulled herself back onto the bed and slid under the sheets, her arms immediately winding around Kenzi and her nose burying into the warm crown of Kenzi’s head. Relief and gratitude spread through Bo, hot and sharp. She didn’t see that the bandages that wrapped around Kenzi’s injured left shoulder stopped at the elbow, or that the rash that had plagued Kenzi for weeks was gone, without a trace to mar the smooth, unscarred skin above her right wrist. But she pressed a kiss into Kenzi’s hair and closed her eyes._

 

* * *

 

 

Her father had told her not to over satisfy herself, but Bo was hungry, and like her mother had said, had an insatiable appetite. She still had time to dress and prepare herself for that evening’s revels and celebrations, and besides, a little appetizer now would only whet her appetite for later.

So, dressed finally in a thin black top, black leather pants and her favorite black leather boots, Bo went out on the town. There was still plenty of light out, it would be hours before the sun set, and it was too warm for a jacket. It was probably still too early to drink, but Bo knew the best bars, where happy hour started early and ended late, and where many of the Dark Fae that were more susceptible to her sultry seductions wiled away the hours before that night’s final celebrations would begin.

There was one bar in particular, a dear favorite of Bo’s, where her mother and father had first found her a little over a year ago. This was a fancy, swaggering hotel bar, above the hotel’s penthouse floor, where they served microbrews from their taps and only the best vintage wines and whiskies in fine crystal glasses and tumblers, and the music was smooth, fine, live jazz that curled and wafted like smoke around the patrons.

It was a little busier today than most days. Here, Fae mingled with humans subtly, discreetly. It was a favorite hunting ground among many of the Dark, including Bo, who, like her mother, had refused without announcement to choose a side. It always gave Bo a vague, confused feeling of wonderment to see how easily the Fae hid themselves among their lesser brethren, how well they could disguise themselves amongst the ordinary and mundane. But her father had taught her the nuances of the Fae well, and she detected them with little effort as they moved and mingled with each other and their prey.

There were two today that caught her eye. Bo leaned against the bar, sipping delicately at her drink, and watched them both with her eyes and ears and that subtle, quiet ability that told her exactly how ready they were for her advances. One was a tiny thing, a bottle blonde, with a ragamuffin cap and gloves. But she moved deftly amongst the other humans, picking pockets and sipping at glasses left ignored on the tables scattered around her. She had sharp, fast, pale gray eyes that glittered periwinkle in the bright lights of the bar, and her fingers fluttered dexterously from pockets and purses to the steadily growing bulge around her hips.

The other was also small, nimble and lithe, but with a vibrant, pulsing energy that immediately attracted Bo’s attention. Her hair was cropped short, and was a smoky silver color that gleamed liquid around her face and along her long, slender neck. Her eyes were darker, richer, but held so much more laughter and grace and life, and her mouth was stretched wide in a constant, infectious smile. She was dressed more elegantly, in a fitted brown pantsuit and a lavender silk shirt with a collar that licked at her neck and glittered at the corners where tiny emeralds caught the light. She was Fae, and had lived a life with more luxury and refinement than the first would ever experience in her short life.

Because it was La Shoshain, Bo’s father had let her go with one more precaution for Bo to observe: that no Fae notice the use of her power. This was, perhaps, the one holy day that was observed by every Fae, both Light and Dark, and the truce that existed between them on La Shoshain was powerful enough that even the Light and Dark Fae Elders, the Ash, and the Morrigan enforced this rule religiously. It was already risky for Bo to use her Succubus abilities outside of the little manor she lived in with her parents, it was much riskier for Bo to hunt other Fae at a Fae-populated bar. Bo knew she had to be careful about choosing her target – it would have to be someone no one would be surprised to see leaving with a stranger. The silver-haired woman that toyed with her drink and flirted with every passerby with ease and grace fit the bill nicely.

It was to her that Bo moved. She abandoned her glass on the smooth, polished bar top and slid gracefully to her side. Her fingers brushed against the older woman’s back, pulsing tendrils of shivering, glowing seduction that arced through thin cloth into soft skin beneath, and with her attention caught, Bo leaned in close to touch her lips to her new friend’s ear and whispered sweet, dirty nothings into it affectionately, almost carelessly. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the blonde human bump into a round older man and apologize, even as she slipped her hand into his pocket and came away with his wallet, fat and round, held lightly between her slender fingers.

“My name’s Seth,” the Fae woman murmured softly back. Dark brown eyes danced merrily at Bo, teasing and light, and Seth turned to face her and slipped her arms around Bo’s waist. Bo smiled down into her new lover’s mouth as she bent to touch a kiss to her lips.

“Care to find somewhere more private, Seth?” Bo hummed quietly into their kiss. Seth’s laugh was light and fluttering, like the sound of high, soft bells jingling in a gentle breeze. “Straight to the point, I see,” Seth murmured against Bo’s mouth, then she pulled back a little, her smile teasing and coy and her dark eyes sparkling with mirth, “At least buy a girl a drink, first,” her breath smelled of sweet coffee and almonds, just slightly bitter around the edges with the alcohol she’d just been drinking. In the corner of her eye, Bo could see the portly gentleman offer the quick-handed human a spiked, fizzing drink.

Bo shivered into the fluttering kisses Seth trailed along her neck and hummed her appreciation. Seth’s tongue licked once, teasingly, into the hollow of Bo’s throat. The gray-eyed girl downed the offered gin and tonic in a single, smooth swallow, and even from across the bar, Bo could hear the crystal clink clearly as its edges met the table. A waitress slid past her and Seth, and with the flutter of her fingers over the barmaid’s elbow, Bo stopped her to order two more of whatever drink Seth was having. Seth didn’t see the subtle, glowing pulse of energy that left the human girl flushing with shy excitement, she only watched Bo with fascination and admiration. Her fingers trailed along Bo’s shoulders, slid down her arms and came back up again to lace together behind Bo’s neck. Bo smiled back down at her conquest, her newest lover, and a deep, penetrating blue raced along the edges of the irises of Bo’s eyes.

For a few, brief moments, Bo lost sight and interest in her silver-eyed human. She played with her conquest, toyed with her, slipped her fingers under her pale silk shirt and caressed smooth, supple skin until it shivered with arousal from Bo’s careful ministrations. When she saw the human again, they were in the elevator, taking it down one more floor to Seth’s penthouse room, and the portly gentleman that had offered her a drink had followed them in. Half-distracted by lazy kisses and Seth’s intimate touch, Bo still noticed the watchful, over-interested stare the ruddy, red-haired man paid the human girl, and the rebellious, disdainful refusals she gave in return. The silver-eyed girl looked dazed and unbalanced, and had to lean on her hands against the elevator’s side to keep upright. Her words slurred.

Bo could have interrupted to help her. But why should she? She was just a human. And Seth was purring in her arms, ready and willing to be thoroughly victimized by Bo’s power and seduction, and the elevator sang when it reached Seth’s floor and the doors sighed open. With coffee and almonds an intoxicating, thrilling flavor on her tongue and wafting in her nostrils, Bo edged out of the elevator in Seth’s arms, with not a thought left for the miniscule, bottle-blonde ballerina that stared almost accusingly at her through unfocused quicksilver eyes, or the portly, lecherous, leering man that held her back with a strong, hard hand clenched around her wrist.

 


	3. Chapter 3

_Bo didn’t sleep a wink. She couldn’t. Exhaustion pulled at her eyelids, her breathing grew heavy and deep with the slumber that teased and taunted at the edges of her frayed consciousness. The smell of Kenzi’s hair and the sweet spiced vanilla scent her skin emanated while she slept invaded her senses._

_But Bo didn’t care. She smiled tiredly into Kenzi’s thick, soft ebony locks, her vision blurry with sleep and her eyelashes fluttering against the darkness that refused to overtake her. She was happy just holding Kenzi, knowing she was safe, at least for tonight. She stroked her fingers through Kenzi’s hair, pressed the occasional kiss to the crown of Kenzi’s head, and thanked whatever God there was that they had come back to each other again. She watched the slow rise and fall of Kenzi’s chest while she breathed, pulled the covers closer around her thin shoulders when she looked cold, whispered soothing reassurances into her ear if Kenzi shivered or gasped in her sleep, and squeezed her eyes shut in gratitude that despite who she was, and everything she’d allowed herself to become, that Kenzi still stuck by her side._

_Through all her anguish at the pain she’d allowed her best friend to endure, all the pain she’d caused, there was hope, and Bo felt blessed._

_Morning crept far too quickly through the grimy, boarded window into Kenzi’s bedroom. It inched along the floor, climbed up the bed and tickled Bo’s skin. She shifted slightly to shield the blinding ray of light from Kenzi’s eyes, fighting to give her best friend just a few more minutes of sleep._

_Bo listened closely to Kenzi’s breathing. It quickened slightly only minutes before she woke, and Kenzi moved, squirming under the bedcovers to tunnel into the weak shadows under Bo’s shoulder. A tiny, tender smile softened the lines on Bo’s face, she recognized the quiet, breathless hiccup Kenzi always gave right before she woke, and looked down to see Kenzi’s pale, periwinkle eyes flutter open a crack. Sleep crusted the corners of her eyes, it was a struggle for the petite, ballerina Goth to tear her sticky eyelids apart, and she rubbed a hand over them. Her soft, pink lips opened in a long, loud yawn._

_“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Bo murmured and grinned down at her best friend. She tucked a rogue strand of hair behind Kenzi’s ear and leaned down to press a gentle kiss to the side of Kenzi’s face. Kenzi only groaned in acknowledgement. “Are you hungry?” Bo mumbled into Kenzi’s hair. She watched in rapt fascination as Kenzi’s arm flopped back onto the bed, bare to the shoulder. Her eyes narrowed at the smooth, clean skin above her wrist._

_Kenzi’s stomach gave a loud, opinionated grumble, tearing Bo’s attention from Kenzi’s forearms back to the petite woman curled into her embrace. A smile curled the corners of her mouth again, and her forehead smoothed. Kenzi chuckled quietly and turned her face into the nape of Bo’s neck. When was the last time she’d woken up to find Bo beside her? When was the last time they’d spent so much time together, in the same room? Even if they’d been only sleeping?_

_“I’ll take that as a ‘yes’,” Bo gave a soft, breathy laugh, but didn’t move to disentangle herself from her best friend’s bed. “Pancakes at the Dal?” she asked instead, “my treat.”_

_Kenzi’s stomach growled again in reply, bringing another light, quiet laugh to Kenzi’s lips that shuddered warm and caressing against Bo’s chest. Bo’s heart swelled at the quiet laughter. Maybe Kenzi wasn’t okay today. But she could be okay tomorrow. Especially if Bo had anything to say about it._

* * *

 

 

Bo’s skin hummed with excitement. It wasn’t only Inari’s hovering presence in her bedroom while she changed, the hungry, smoldering looks the redhead gave her while she helped her Mistress prepare, or the affectionate, feather-light kisses she brushed against her skin whenever the opportunity arose. It wasn’t even the afternoon snack she’d enjoyed; Seth, the Seer she’d met at the bar in which she’d found her parents shortly after arriving in the city, had tasted like coffee, warm and robust and earthy.

Walter stood just inside the door to her bedroom, looking on apathetically while Inari dressed Bo in her evening wear. Bo loved this black leather dress, with the V-neck that accentuated the soft curves of her ample breasts and the way it clung to her hourglass figure. She stared at her reflection in the mirror, admiring the contrast against the creamy paleness of her shoulders and arms, and the long, supple line of her legs as she slipped into a pair of lacey black ankle boots with stiletto heels almost four inches long.

“Are you almost ready, Darling?” Bo’s father leaned his head in through the door, his lilting, melodic words accentuated by the lazy smile that curled across his lips. He looked sharp, dressed in black slacks, a crisp white shirt and a deep purple vest filigreed and edged in gold. A gold watch sparkled on his wrist, the plain gold wedding band on his finger glittered in the leaping candle light of Bo’s spacious bedroom. Jack stepped through the door, Walter tutted around him immediately, straightening the red bowtie around his neck and brushing imaginary lint from his spotless, stylish outfit.

“You look beautiful, my dear,” his deep, powerful voice purred with pleasure as he stared at his daughter, evaluating every inch of her serpentine form appraisingly. Bo only held still long enough to finish adding the final touches to her make-up and smile at her father through the mirror before turning in her heels and stepping close to the man that had brought her into this world and had taught her all the intricacies of the Fae with a patient, affectionate hand. She brushed her fingers over the lapels of his vest, appreciating the whisper of silk under her fingertips and smiling up into brown eyes that were so like her own, that stared down at her with so much love.

“You look quite dapper yourself, Daddy,” she murmured quietly. Electricity surged across her skin, her excitement bubbled to the surface. She was anxious to start their evening of revels, this was going to be the best La Shoshain she’d ever celebrated, even if it was only the second she’d ever experienced. “You wouldn’t happen to know what ‘surprise’ Mom’s got in store for me tonight, would you?” Bo knew she had her father wound around her little finger, she grinned coquettishly up at him, her bottom lip held between her teeth.

Jack only smiled down at his daughter, enjoying her excitement, and the way her eyes lit when she was happy. He had missed out on all of her earlier years, had missed watching her grow up, grow into her abilities, into the woman she had become. But he was so proud of her, and loved her fiercely. He raised a finger to his lips, his own smile radiant. He wouldn’t spoil the surprise his wife had prepared for their daughter.

Bo puckered her lips in a mock pout, Inari fussed around her, and Walter fussed around them both, making sure that every hair on their heads was absolutely perfect.

“Darlings, are you ready? The Dal is waiting for its stars to arrive!” Aife’s voice wandered through the crack of the door, merely seconds ahead of the beautiful Succubus that stepped inside, beaming at her husband and daughter and visibly at least as excited as Bo felt. “Bo, baby, you look ravishing,” Aife’s words lowered to a pleased, proud murmur. Her fingers curled around Jack’s elbow, her other hand reached out to grasp Bo’s affectionately.

Aife was stunning, dressed in a backless deep purple dress filigreed with fine lines of gold that fell to her feet. Her shoulders were bare, she’d let her dark, coppery hair down, and it fell in slender curls around her face, neck and shoulders. The front of her gown dipped low, flaunting her soft curves. Diamonds glittered in her ears, peeking shyly past the luscious locks that fell around them, and on the tennis bracelet on her left wrist and the engagement ring Aife still wore along with her wedding ring to special occasions.

Bo smiled through her anticipation, she could feel how her skin glowed with her happiness, with her excitement, and leaned forward to press a kiss to her mother’s cheek.

“Thanks, Momma,” she murmured quietly into Aife’s ear, “you look beautiful, too.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

_Bo waited until their plates were clean, even of residue syrup which Kenzi quickly mopped up with a last extra flap of pancake, before she said anything to Kenzi. All morning, Bo had been watching her best friend, trying not to stare too openly at the smooth, unmarred skin above her right wrist, trying to decide if this was an older development, or if the last time she’d seen Kenzi before Inari had kidnapped her, she’d still been wearing a bandage there._

_Kenzi had devoured her stack of pancakes and half of Bo’s voraciously. It always amazed Bo how much the tiny woman could eat, and if anyone had asked her: along with her wit and resourcefulness, Kenzi’s appetite was definitely one of the little Russian woman’s superpowers._

_When Kenzi finally licked her lips clean and pushed her plate away, Bo reached across the table to grasp her best friend’s hand. There were only a few windows in the Dal, but the lighting was bright for the morning crowd, and the air was thick with the warm, earthy smells of coffee, of toast and eggs, pancakes and syrup and bacon. Kenzi looked down at the hand that held hers, her fingers shifted under Bo’s slightly, and she turned her hand over palm-up to return the gentle, affectionate grip with a squeeze of her own._

_“Everything okay, Bo-Bo?” Kenzi asked, her piercing blue-gray gaze rising to meet Bo’s eyes. Concern twisted her mouth into a tight smile, anxious for the questions she could feel coming next, for the answers she knew she would have to give, for the uncertain reactions they would invoke, and for the relief that honesty could finally give her. She couldn’t keep any more secrets from Bo. The one she’d kept had slowly been suffocating her over the past few weeks, it weighed on her, as much as the distance she’d been feeling from her best friend had been weighing on her. It had been part of what had caused it._

_Bo returned Kenzi’s worried stare with a half-smile that didn’t reach her eyes. She stroked her thumb over the palm of Kenzi’s hand distractedly, considering how best to approach the subject, and feeling a wave of self-reproach for not addressing the issue sooner._

_“Your arm’s all healed up,” Bo remarked quietly, turning their hands over to nod at Kenzi’s forearm. Kenzi looked down at her pale, flawless skin, as much to see how well the rash had cleared up as to break eye contact. Bo reached her other hand out to brush her fingers across Kenzi’s arm delicately._

_“Told you, Bo-balicious. Nothing a spray of Neosporin wouldn’t fix,” Kenzi muttered, barely able to utter the lie. Bo narrowed her gaze at her best friend and squeezed the hand she held gently, encouragingly. Sometimes, old habits died hard._

_“Kenzi,” Bo’s voice was soft but serious with gentle reproach. Kenzi forced herself to look back up to meet brown eyes etched with worry. She sighed, weary to the bone, and gave a slight nod to indicate that she would do her best to tell Bo everything. Even if it meant breaking Dyson’s confidence. Bo had a right to know. And this secret had torn their friendship apart, quietly, stealthily so. Kenzi’s gaze flicked down to her hand ensconced so safely in Bo’s. It had been so good to feel wanted, to feel needed, the night before. Where had Bo been, when Kenzi had been trying so desperately to talk to her about the rash that had developed on her arm, that had grown steadily worse over the weeks since she’d visited the Norn on Dyson’s behalf?_

_Kenzi pushed her feelings of hurt and doubt away and settled her other hand over Bo’s, so that all their hands rested in a jumble together. Wherever Bo had been before, she was here now. The concern in her dark eyes was sincere, the apology she’d given the night before was true, and Kenzi knew, deep down in her soul, that Bo loved her. That she’d simply gotten a little lost. That they’d both been lost for some time. They needed to find each other again, and that could only happen when all truths were told, when the secrets kept between them were torn away._

_“Do you remember the night before we killed the Garuda?” Kenzi’s voice was soft, but steady. She drew in a deep breath, her worried gaze rose to meet Bo’s. That night felt like it had happened a lifetime ago. Bo’s chin dipped slightly in agreement. “I sorta paid a visit to the Norn,” Kenzi’s voice hushed with her confession._

_Bo’s nostrils flared, her fingers tightened around Kenzi’s hand and the lines across her face stretched and stiffened. “Kenzi, no!” Bo’s appalled whisper was sharp and soft, “are you crazy?! Why would you do that?!” Panic put a tremor in Bo’s words, Kenzi flinched against the harshness of Bo’s voice._

_“Look, just listen, okay?” Kenzi sighed. She struggled to meet Bo’s anxious gaze, afraid of the disappointment, worry and reproach she believed she would find there. All her life, Kenzi had been able to take care of herself, to watch her own back and pull herself out of her own scrapes. To have needed to be rescued had been a little humiliating. To have been rescued by Vex and the girl they were supposed to be helping had felt even worse. To know that the reason she’d needed rescuing was as much her own hubris as her inadequacies as a human in the Fae world had reduced her to nothing._

_Kenzi had always believed she brought something to the table, even as a human immersed in the world of the Fae, fighting Fae baddies, solving cases and watching Bo’s back. She was the one that had singlehandedly managed to save Dyson from the Berserkers he’d faced alone at the Garuda’s lair, the one that had stayed behind and hidden in order to bring him back from the brink of death. Even if what she offered wasn’t physical prowess, once upon a time, her friends had needed her. But for some time now, Kenzi had been feeling more and more like a liability to Bo and the rest of their gang._

_“Kenzi,” Bo’s worried voice yanked Kenzi out of her tumultuous thoughts. When she finally looked up to meet Bo’s eyes, there was worry and there was reproach there. But the disappointment she’d expected to see was missing. There was something else, a glimmer there that Kenzi wasn’t entirely sure how to interpret. “What happened at the Norn’s?” Bo prodded gently, bringing Kenzi’s train of thought back to the conversation at hand._

_Kenzi gave her head a slight shake and looked back down at her hands entangled in Bo’s. It had always been them, together. The dynamic duo. Kenzi and Bo vs. the world._

_“I went to get Dyson’s love back,” Kenzi’s voice was tremulous, her pale eyes rose to meet Bo’s stare again. “I turned sexy lumberjack on that bitch’s tree-hugging ass,” strength returned to Kenzi’s voice with her conviction. She would do it again, and again, and again to get Dyson his love back, because that was what he had needed to be the best he could be, to help Bo fight the Garuda. Besides, the Norn had been a self-righteous, self-important bitch. “It worked too. I got Dyson his love back. I just happened to also accidentally knock over a bottle of nasty, sludgy, black Fae mojo on my arm. Burned like acid, too,” Kenzi scraped her nails along her arm, where the rash had surfaced, as though she still felt the ghost of that burn scald her skin, and shrugged at the sympathetic grimace on Bo’s face, “I didn’t think it was that big a deal.”_

_“Kenzi…” Bo sighed, her eyes fell closed with the exasperation she felt at Kenzi’s reckless behavior. Self-reproach at not having been there for her best friend when she’d needed her rose through her again. “How could you think it wasn’t a big deal? The Norn is one dangerous, crazy bitch,” Bo’s eyes flew open again, she squeezed the hand that remained folded in between hers. It just showed how strong and resilient Kenzi was, how tough and selfless, to risk angering a Norn to fight for a love that wasn’t even hers._

_But this raised a whole other question. If Kenzi succeeded, did that mean that Dyson had his love back? Did he still love Bo? And why hadn’t he told her? Anger rose steadily to the surface, it brought Bo’s eyebrows into a tight line across her forehead, and her lips pursed with the knowledge that Dyson had kept yet another big, important secret from her, again._

_“So did Dyson get his love back, then?” Bo asked. It was leaving the topic just a little, but Bo needed to know. She didn’t meet Kenzi’s worried gaze, only stared fixedly at the rough grain that curled and swooped across the table’s boards in front of her._

_“Yes,” Kenzi replied cautiously, “I don’t think he knows what to do with it, Bo. He wanted to tell you, but I guess by the time he got the cojones to do it…” Kenzi flinched at the glare Bo sent her, “you were in Hecuba prison, getting into Dr. Hotpants’ hot pants.”_

_This was an anger best directed at Dyson, Bo decided. She stared into anxious gray eyes, rubbed the palm held stiffly between her hands until it relaxed a little, and forced herself to breathe slowly, until her anger subsided and she was able to focus on the best friend she’d left hanging for so long._

_Kenzi was relieved to see the scowl across Bo’s face slacken, to feel the hands that held hers loosen from the death grip Kenzi suspected Bo didn’t even know she’d held. Bo could put the rest of the pieces of the story together by herself, and judging by the expression that turned from angry to guilty, already had._

_“Inari kidnapped you because of me,” Bo whispered. Her voice felt like it was catching in her throat. Kenzi could have died because of the things she’d done for Bo, because Bo had been too wrapped up in her own problems to notice that something was wrong with Kenzi, because by the time Bo had found out that Kenzi was gone, she’d already begun to turn into the monster she’d been struggling to keep locked away, deep inside herself. Except, to have been so selfish to begin with meant that she hadn’t kept the monster hidden away as well as she’d hoped._

_Gentle fingers brushed at her cheek, they pushed the errant strand of hair that had fallen into her face behind her ear. Kenzi should be angry, should hate her, but she wasn’t, and she didn’t._

_“Bo, Inari kidnapped me because she was helping O’Meara. He was just trying to get to you, babe. Don’t let him.”_

_But Kenzi knew that he already had._

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My chapters have been shorter than usual lately, so here's chapter 4 a little early. Chapter 5 will be posted on Tuesday, as per schedule. Thanks all, enjoy!

Bo had never been to the Dal Riata before. She had stood outside its door on the rare occasion, picking up random Fae from the streets to feed from, but had never gone through the door itself. She’d heard the music inside – sometimes a popular rock band, sometimes catchy, upbeat Irish folk music – stir and beat and throb when the door opened to allow patrons to pass in and out. She’d seen the dim lights inside, the smiles and laughter flashing across faces that blurred across her vision, but had never ventured through its threshold.

She’d taken anyone she wanted from the alleyway that it opened to, or else had gone hunting in various parts of the city with her mother whenever they both wanted a snack or to find new Thralls to bring into their folds.

This would be the first time she stepped across the threshold. She lingered at the door, arm in arm with both her parents. They stood with her, buzzing with anticipation, but patient enough to allow their daughter a moment before the chaos they’d already set in motion really began.

“Bo, darling, it’s time,” Aife’s voice whispered past Bo’s hair, tickling the shell of her ear. Bo turned to face her mother, noting the gentle, loving smile on Aife’s lips, and returned it with a bright grin of her own.

A heartbeat later, the very first notes of their own, personal orchestra exploded. Crimson and orange and a beautiful, gleaming gold that matched the light, glittering detail on Aife’s dress and Jack’s vest bloomed through the door that flew open with the blast, and it shook the cozy little way station down to its very foundations. Screaming and crying followed almost instantly.

It was a small explosion. Not intended to kill as many as to maim, and instill fear and chaos. It was La Shoshain, violence on this holy day was forbidden to all the Fae clans. It sent a thrill through Bo to break the rules once again. Oh, how she loved the freedom that came with disobedience, the feeling of dissolved responsibility, the carelessness of laws unheeded and broken. Bo’s face lit with the flames that shattered the windows and licked along the walls, flickering burning gold across her features and setting a glint in her dark eyes that seemed almost manic with excitement.

The flames died almost as quickly as they’d surged. And the little family of three stepped through the scorched door into the most respected and loved way station in the county to find it a mess of broken bodies, of scattered fire, of thoughtless destruction. The screaming had died down, but the sound of broken crying and the silence of shock electrified the burned atmosphere of the Dal Riata. Faces were frozen in masks of pain, fear, and comic tragedy.

 Her mother and father had also taught her that on La Shoshain, the intentional use of one’s Fae abilities was forbidden as well. Bo reveled in the freedom she’d taken for herself as she picked her way through the ruins of the Dal Riata to feed on various Fae. Her father stood and basked in the terror that flooded the sturdy building. Her mother wound her way through the debris as well, making a beeline for the bar that still stood, resiliently, at its deep end. Bo occupied herself by searching through the wreckage, hunting for any Fae that wasn’t too injured, and still handsome enough, to deserve her glorious attention. Perhaps, as a gift to herself, she might bring home a new Thrall. She stepped along gingerly, careful not to dirty her pretty stiletto pumps more than she had to.

“Bo,” Aife’s call tore Bo’s attention away from a handsome Wolf that struggled against her, his skin scorched by fire and his rugged face twisted into a scowl of pain and bewilderment. He was trapped beneath a heavy, burning beam from the waist down, and he scraped and scrabbled at the floorboards in his attempt to escape. His floundering movements had caught her eye, and his faded blue eyes were still sharp in his lightly tanned face. She had knelt beside him, pulled his arms around her and pulsed soothing seduction from her skin into his, and held his rough, bearded face between her hands. Bo lifted her head and tilted it to look in mixed curiosity and a little agitation at the woman that had prepared this beautiful feast of carnage and chaos for her and distracted her now from it. “I have a surprise for you,” Aife’s sing-song voice was slightly muffled, but Bo could still hear the smile that stretched across her face. She was bent behind the bar’s counter, and rose clutching a struggling form within her grasp.

Excitement flooded Bo’s chest. She dropped the grunting Wolf and pushed his arms away from her to stand, and the moment her skin left his, he cried out in pain and panic, and it was tainted with the loss of Bo’s soothing touch. But his cry went ignored. Bo stared at the short, stocky man Aife dragged over the debris that had fallen from the broken, collapsing roof, her attention wholly focused on the agony and anger that twisted his face.

He was balding. Blood glittered across his brow and scalp, bright against the black ashes that smeared his bearded face. His skin was flushed and angry and irritated from the burns that spread across it, and his sharp vest and shirt, his leather pants, were torn and filthy with more blood, and more soot, and more dirt from the collapsed roof. His dark eyes glittered belligerently at her, and Bo noticed with a small amount of disappointment that they would not focus; he was badly concussed. It was always more fun when they were wholly aware of the events that transpired around them. He struggled wildly in Aife’s vise-like grip, but his thrashing movements were uncoordinated, and a gaping wound opened the side of his face and left one ear hanging stiffly, miserably, from it.

He slid and skidded and kicked over the beams that sprawled across the broken hardwood floors, over bodies and the skeletons of chairs and tables, until Aife had dragged him to Bo’s feet. She threw him roughly down, and he fell with a grunt across Bo’s shoes, and struggled to stand upright, but his legs would not hold, and all he managed was a crooked kneel.

“Bo,” Aife’s voice trilled through the electric air, shrill and high with giddy excitement and dark, brittle hatred, “I want you to meet someone.”

Bo looked up from the pathetic creature at her feet to meet her mother’s gaze. Ash floated in the air like black, twisted snowflakes and had settled over Aife’s glowing, coppery hair and across her shoulders. And Aife’s eyes glittered in the unsteady, scorching light of the burning bar. Her lips were curled in a cruel smile, her teeth flashed white behind them, and Bo’s face stretched into a grin almost identical to it. “This is Fitzpatrick McCorrigan,” Aife’s voice rang in Bo’s ears, triumphant, bold, and proud, “my father,” Aife was beaming now, and Bo’s heart thudded in her chest, blood rushed in her ears, and her skin hummed with pleasure, with anticipation, with a shared triumph that came with the sense of belonging Aife and Jack had given her, “your grandfather,” Aife was laughing now, a cruel, thin cackle that curled and crackled with the flames that still licked and ate at the walls and floor around them, Bo felt herself grow dizzy, light-headed, drunk off the buzzing, electric tension that tightened the air around them and made it unbreathable, “The Blood King!”

Bo felt her father’s presence close by her side. Hands, clawed and hot and desperate, scrabbled for purchase around her ankles. Teeth bit into the flesh just below her calf, but Bo didn’t notice. The blood that trickled down from the skin broken by the Wolf’s teeth didn’t so much as tickle her. She kicked him off delicately, the sharp point of her heel met the solidity of a cheekbone, and the Wolf twisted and jolted backward with a yelp that Bo paid no mind to.  A sword passed from father to daughter, glittering and cold in the leaping, greedy flames that continued to spread and cast eerie, monstrous shadows across every surface. The Blood King shook his head, and ashes and soot formed a smoky, regal halo around him. Blood spattered across the floor, stained Aife’s and Bo’s legs in graceful crimson splatters. The hilt of her father’s sword was cool in her palms, and it was heavy in her hands. But Bo lifted it, carefully, above her head.

And then the little, powerfully built, stocky man raised his head and looked at Bo. His gaze bored into hers, angry, frightened, desperate, and rebellious, all at once. She could have loved him. He was made of such stern stuff, of this Bo was certain. She could see the steel in his stare, the determination in the lines of his mouth, the wisdom that wrinkled the corners of his eyes, the concerns of a thousand years etched across the expanse of his high, kingly brow. She could have loved him. But he had abandoned her. He had betrayed her. Just like he had abandoned and betrayed her mother. He had not been there when she hit puberty, had not been there when she’d killed her first lover. He had not searched for her, relentlessly, until he found her, nor explained to her the intricacies of Fae culture, like her mother and father had done. And it was to them that Bo owed all her fealty, all her love and devotion. So though Bo might have loved this long-lost and forgotten king, Bo already did love her mother and father, who both watched her eagerly with hungry eyes.

He didn’t beg for his life. He didn’t cower in fear of her. He knew his end was coming, and like a king should, he shouldered his death, met it with grace, and bravery, like an old friend he finally meant to call on. An old friend he would have words with. His nostrils flared once, his fingers gripped his thighs in his attempt to remain upright, and he stared at her with such conviction, such power, it sent a rush of delight crashing throughout Bo’s trembling, quivering frame.

And then the sword flashed down in an arc, a rainbow of dancing white light through the red and black hellscape of the Dal Riata, and his strong, steady, kingly eyes stared at her no longer.

 

 

* * *

 

 

**And even as those eyes dulled and faded and glazed over in death, the afterimage of his stare burned and throbbed through the cold, empty air.**

**The cold here seeped through her skin. It froze her down to her core. She reached for those burning eyes, desperate to feel even a scrap of the heat that scorching glare emitted into the darkness. But the heat she’d expected to feel from them, even as they faded in a dancing mirage before her very eyes, was not there. She was drowning in black, empty, passionless space. And all Bo could do was sob, and shake, and hate herself for what she was. Images flashed across her eyes, blindingly saturated with color, taut and brittle with intensity. She could feel nothing around her. She was surrounded by nothing. All that remained here was the monster she struggled so hard not to be. The monster she was, no matter how hard she tried.**

**The cold bit mercilessly into her skin. It clawed at her lungs as she fought to breathe. Its frozen fingers wound around her frantically beating heart and squeezed, it slid through her veins like liquid nitrogen. She was not in the Dal Riata, slicing through beloved skin and muscle and bone with her father’s sword, surrounded by a beautiful, burning cage of fire and crumbling wood and brick and twisting, warping steel. Here, it was cold. Lifelessly, dispassionately cold.**

**Bo tried to whisper Trick’s name. But she had no voice. And he slid through her fingers, there and gone. He stared at her rebelliously in the darkness, his face alight with leaping flames from another world, another time, and his eyes were bright with defiance, glittering and strong and warm. She tried to reach for Kenzi, whom she’d abandoned, time and again, but she could not catch her. And she faded from her sight, bleary eyed and drugged and condemnatory as she stared at Bo’s retreating backside while her rapist held her back in the elevator.**

**They were lost to her. Gone. The grandfather she had loved. Had killed. For the sake of her own craving for power, for any family, good or bad, for her absolute disregard for rules and laws, her insatiable lust, her greed, her selfish whims.**

**This was where it had all begun. With Kenzi. The small, spritely human girl who had changed Bo’s life forever by simply being there. If Kenzi hadn’t been roofied by the man at the bar, and Bo hadn’t felt the compassionate urge to help her, what would have become of Bo? Would she have been found first by her mother, been seduced so thoroughly by the promise of power and family that she would have forsaken everything else?**

**But hadn’t Bo left Kenzi in the elevator to be raped and killed, so that she could enjoy a feed? Hadn’t that been Kenzi, teetering on the edge of consciousness, staring accusingly at Bo’s backside while she abandoned her to a horrible fate?**

**Bo wished she could feel the sound of Kenzi’s name on her lips, but she had never even learned Kenzi’s name. And as easily as she’d slipped into a fractious, easily forgotten moment of her life, she was gone. The best friend she’d promised to protect, to love, to trust. Whom she’d relied on, who’d given her everything, even the love of a childhood crush that had flowered into the love of a woman who’d deserved far more than what she’d been given.**

**Bo struggled desperately in the numbing cold that gripped her. She’d never learned Kenzi’s name, but she knew it now. She could have loved Trick, but she already did, and she could have saved him, but she’d already sacrificed him, for the love of a mother that she’d already allowed to disappear and die. Conflicting memories and emotions and events tore at Bo’s conscious mind. Which reality was real? Which Bo was hers? Had they both existed, or had neither of them ever been real?**

**But Bo was real. This nothingness was real, the pain that wracked her body and broke her heart was real, and if all that was true, then something in those twisted, clashing memories must be true too. Right?**

**Uncertainty gripped Bo, and she was lost again in a haze of frigid confusion. The nothingness that surrounded her ate at her fraying consciousness. Bo couldn’t guess what was real anymore, all the images that flashed through her groggy mind seemed real, and some of them might be memories, and others yet the imaginings of a sinful, lost, soiled soul, yearning for a place to belong, for a family to belong to. But which family was real?**

**Bo struggled to scream. The cold numbed her throat, the darkness swallowed the shrill cry of fear and anguish and anger she wished desperately she could hear, if only to be sure of what was real and what wasn’t. So she focused on the minutest details her damaged mind conjured up in those flashes of warm, living, breathing life. And the memory of those Wolf’s eyes burning up at her in the ruins of the Dal came to her. The scorched, pale eyes of a Wolf that seemed so familiar, so real, so important. She’d seen them before, in so many different contexts… they’d been angry, confused, frightened… loving…**

**Dyson loved her. Of that, she was certain. Kenzi had told her once, and he had admitted it to her again, later. She thought she remembered that, if any of her memories could be trusted. She focused herself wholly on that thought, forced herself to ignore the barrage of conflicting memories that told her otherwise. Dyson loved her… Dyson had been her lover… the Wolf with the sad, faded, soulful eyes…**

 


	5. Chapter 5

Bo loved the ring. She loved the smell of sweat and blood that permeated the air after a good, hard fight. She loved the hot sting of her opponent’s gloved fist scraping the side of her face, she loved the satisfying thud, the hard impact of her own fist connecting with a hard jaw or toned stomach. She loved the dance, the focus, the slide of air against damp skin when she dodged an attack, the scrape of feet on the canvas flooring, the rush and activity that surrounded her when the fighting gym was busy.

Best of all, Bo loved the tunnel vision of a good workout, when she didn’t have to think about her returned feelings for the intoxicating blonde that had stolen her heart, or the human doctor that had stolen her mate.

Boxing, especially with Tamsin, who was a ferocious opponent, was usually an incredibly satisfying way for Bo to shed the stress of work and the frustrations of trying and failing to tell Lauren how she felt, and of the heart-ache of seeing Lauren with Dyson. But today, Bo simply could not summon the strength of mind to focus on the fight. And with every punch and jab that Tamsin landed, and every aimless hit Bo thrust through empty air, Bo’s frustration and anger grew and writhed and coiled in the pit of her stomach. Her attacks grew sloppy, her footwork unbalanced and her defense weak and ineffective, until Tamsin stopped and stood, and stared at Bo with green eyes that glittered with annoyed perplexity.

“Dude, did you shove that pole up your ass too high today? Relax and fight me, or get the hell out of the ring,” Tamsin’s words were sharp, they bit through the last of Bo’s thin patience and earned the Valkyrie a sharp blow to the head. It sent her twisting backward, and when Tamsin straightened again, a thin, crimson line dripped down the side of her mouth to her chin. The glitter in her eyes turned cold.

“Sorry,” Bo muttered darkly. She raised her hands to echo her apology before tearing the strap of one glove off with her teeth. “I’m in a shitty mood, that’s all. And this case isn’t helping.”

Tamsin tore her own gloves off, and with her eyes averted to her task, Bo couldn’t see if the Valkyrie accepted her terse apology or not. Bo bit back a growl and tore her second glove off and tossed both toward her bag, sitting open just outside the ring. Even if Tamsin didn’t agree, the fight was over, and Bo’s anxious, irritated mood hadn’t improved in the twenty minutes they’d spent sparring distractedly in it.

The fist that connected with the side of Bo’s face sent the Wolf careening to the floor. She barked out a sharp whine in surprise at the pain that exploded along her cheek and twisted on the canvas bottom to glare up at her partner, who grinned down at her darkly and offered her a hand to help her up. Tamsin’s palm was sweaty with exertion, and smeared red across the back where she’d swiped it against her bloodied lip.

“Never,” the warning in Tamsin’s voice sent shivers down Bo’s back, “ever sucker punch me like that again. You hear me, Wolf?” Though Tamsin’s grin was still firmly in place, there was a darkness in her expression and a threat in her tone that instantly made Bo want to hit her again and assert her dominance. But she bit back the growl that rose in her chest and only nodded tensely at the woman squared staunchly in front of her. She smelled like sweat and adrenaline, and a bare trace of the blood that welled again along her bottom lip. She stood only centimeters away, Bo could even catch the thinnest wisp of what Tamsin had eaten for lunch: cold black coffee and stale pepperoni pizza. And if Bo didn’t look closely enough, ignored the smell of her that surrounded her in a haze, she could almost imagine it was Lauren standing in front of her, telling her that the Norn hadn’t changed how she’d felt, begging her for another chance to make Bo love her.

“Let’s hit the showers. I need a drink,” Tamsin finally stepped back, the snarky grin disappeared from her face and her own frustrations rolled in like thunderheads across her expression, “you’re buying.”

Bo barked out a short, tense laugh and stepped out of the ring alongside her new partner.

* * *

 

_Maia hadn’t been invited to the funeral. She wasn’t Fae, and though she had been claimed by Seth for half a decade, was not considered by the few friends and family Seth had retained over the centuries as being worthy of an invitation to her burial._

_This wasn’t a surprise to the curly-haired human. She had always known that the Fae considered her, as well as the rest of human-kind, as lesser beings. Who, in their right mind, ever invited the deceased’s pet bird or goldfish to their memorial? And she was grateful that Ryan had been kind enough to smuggle Seth’s favorite brown silk scarf and a few of the books Seth had bought Maia as gifts over the years to her. She hadn’t expected it of the Loki, but he and Seth had been good friends, and she supposed he must have grown accustomed to seeing Maia whenever he visited or filled an order for the Seer._

_So though Maia had felt the sting of being overlooked by Seth’s inner circle on the day of her funeral, she was grateful to the new friends she’d made for dragging her out to the Dal to celebrate Seth’s life and mourn her death with her over shots of Seth’s favorite whiskey._

_“Another?”_

_Maia shoved her glass over to the green-eyed Valkyrie that eyed her with ill-concealed concern. Her movements were rough and sloppy, she’d already had six shots, which were three or four too many for her scrawny, skeletal frame. She slurred a response in the affirmative and dropped her head on the counter with a heavy, dull thud._

_“Don’t you think she’s had enough?” Bo leaned over the same counter, her dark eyes settled on the form slumped on Tamsin’s other side and her brow twisted in apprehension. Bo didn’t know Seth, hadn’t even exchanged words with her, and wasn’t even really close to either Maia or Tamsin, but she’d only just finished her training session with Trick, and Lauren hadn’t been picking up her phone all afternoon. So when the offer of a few shots with Tamsin and Maia in Seth’s honor was given, Bo hesitantly accepted._

_“I donno,” Tamsin wrinkled her nose at the human beside her, “maybe. If I’d known she was such a lightweight, I wouldn’t have claimed her. She better not puke on me on the way home.”_

_“Who isn’t a lightweight next to you?” Bo snorted derisively into her glass. Tamsin ignored her muttered words and poured another shot of the amber liquid into Maia’s glass._

_“Being a lightweight is not an excuse,” Tamsin twisted to pour another finger into Bo’s tumbler and another shot into her own. Her glittering eyes rose to meet Bo’s, and she picked her glass up and tilted it to her, “to a woman who could hold her liquor, a woman who can’t, and a woman whose love-life drama rivals that of a soap-opera.” Tamsin’s mouth twisted into a wry grin, and she tossed her shot back with the ease and composure that only a centuries-old Valkyrie could manage._

_“Excuse me?” Bo didn’t drink to the toast. Her mouth tensed and she glared at the blonde beside her, her temper flared at the ill-conceived joke and she struggled to set down her glass as carefully as possible without cracking it in her tight, white-knuckled grip._

_“Oh, come on, Succu-drag. You’re not sitting here with a pair of drunks mourning the death of a person you barely knew for shits and giggles,” Tamsin gave a short, tense laugh that sounded more like a throaty cough and turned on her stool to face Bo squarely. Behind her, Maia groaned and shoved the shot Tamsin had poured her away, her face looked a little green around the edges, and she tore her new glasses off and dropped them onto the counter before burying her head into the crook of her casted arm. “If you could be home right now with your little pet doctor, you would be. Which means The Girl with the Stick up Her Ass gave you the brush-off. Am I right?”_

_The acidity in Tamsin’s tone wore at Bo’s nerves and set her teeth on edge. Her lips twitched into a frown, but she refused to allow the truth of Tamsin’s statement get under her skin. Ever since Bo’s descent into madness at her father’s mansion and her faithless behavior with her Thralls both before and after Lauren’s rescue, things between Bo and Lauren had been strained, to say the least. Bo had been struggling to repair the damage caused, and Lauren had sworn that she understood Bo’s behavior and forgave her for it, but the damage had been done, and there was nothing Bo or Lauren could say or do to take it all back. And though Bo was desperate to find a way for them to reconnect, to find their places at each other’s side again with the same ease and familiarity and passion that they’d had at the beginning of their short relationship, she was also heavily preoccupied by her Dawning. And things hadn’t been going well in either respect._

_Still, it was impossible for Tamsin to be acquainted with the uneasy, uncertain condition of Bo and Dyson’s friendship. Bo’s lips pressed together and she set her gaze to the dark, glittering liquid between her fingers. She had only discovered through Kenzi a couple of days ago that he’d gotten his love back from the Norn, and the roiling anger and betrayal and bitterness she’d felt towards him for his silence hadn’t yet settled. It would have only grated her already worn nerves more to discover that Tamsin had known about it before her too._

_“Between that and the moony dog sniffing at your heels and pining away after you, I bet you could start your own little drama series on Oxygen.” Tamsin laughed, it was dark and bitter, and not a little sardonic. “Ryan sends his best, by the way.”_

_Bo stiffened in her seat. Her heart froze in her chest for an instant with the resentment that flared hot and angry through her. So Tamsin had known that Dyson had gotten his love back after all? Had everyone known, but Bo? Her teeth clenched, she had to force her jaw open to down the whiskey she clutched tightly between her fingers, and the smooth, searing liquid worked to warm and loosen her taut muscles and stiff shoulders._

_“God, what is his problem, anyway?!” The tumbler clattered to the bar noisily, and Bo turned to stare at the Valkyrie whose expression, lined with worry and ill-humor, twisted into a confused frown. Bo’s voice rose with her irritated consternation, and it occurred to her, a little belatedly, that perhaps it wasn’t just Maia that had had just a little too much to drink. “You’d think that he would just tell me. I mean, you would think, of all people, he would tell_ me _!”_

_Tamsin’s nose wrinkled with her confusion, her head cocked back and one eyebrow rose with disdainful perplexity. “Who? Ryan?”_

_Bo rolled her eyes and snatched the bottle of whiskey from Tamsin to pour herself another shot. It dribbled sloppily into her glass and spilled onto the counter, and Tamsin had to snatch it from Bo’s grasp to prevent her from wasting any more of the precious, expensive alcohol._

_“Uhm, Dyson!” incredulity rang in Bo’s voice, and she tossed back her shot quickly, if only to quench the fire that burned in her gut. It only intensified, her resentment coiled warm and queasy and Bo shoved her glass away from her in much the same careless, clumsy fashion Maia had done only minutes ago. “He got his love back. But does he love me, hmm,” Bo’s voice fell to a low, disturbed mumble, “that is the question.”_

_Tamsin rolled her eyes and sighed in exasperation. The bottle was down to its last shot, and she poured it for herself, but only nursed it between her hands as if praying it would multiply._

_“Everyone’s got their fucking first world problems,” the words came out a dark mutter, unheard and ignored by the brooding women on either side of her, “the guy’s crazy moony for you, Bo,” Tamsin raised her voice sharply and turned to glare reprovingly at the spoiled, self-important Succubus that moped beside her, “you just suck at reading people.”_

_“I mean, you would think he could just man-up and tell me, right?” Bo ignored her, lost in her half-drunken rant and to the aggravation that rolled and thundered like a storm inside her. “Guys are jerks,” she grumbled darkly. Her hands splayed over the sticky countertop and she glared at the contrast of her pale, porcelain skin against the dark wood. “Hell, even Trick knew before I did!”_

_“What did I know before you did?” Trick’s gentle, gravelly voice tore Bo’s attention away from her fingers to the man that strolled towards them on the other side of the bar. His brow was set in a worried line and his mouth tight with disapproval at the morose, sorry sight of his drunk granddaughter shouting over the loud buzz of conversation, and a human draped half-asleep across the bartop._

_“Oh, thank Odin, Trick. Another bottle, please!” Tamsin thrust the empty bottle of whiskey she’d clutched tightly between her fingers at him, her voice desperate with the knowledge that she wouldn’t get through the night with her sanity intact without it. Trick’s eyebrows rose incredulously and he scoffed, his hands remained buried in the rag he held between them._

_“You’re cut off. And I suggest you take her,” he nodded his head pointedly at Maia, snoring loudly into her casted arm, “home before she gets alcohol poisoning and makes a sloppy, disgusting mess in my bar.”_

_“You knew, didn’t you?” Bo’s voice rang over the inarticulate din, she pointed her finger accusingly at her grandfather, her irritation with him over Dyson’s secret doubled by the unsuccessful attempts at training he’d put her through all day. “You knew Dyson got his love back too, and you didn’t tell me. Nobody told me! He should have told me!”_

_“Can it, Bo!” Maia’s voice was muffled through her arm, she raised her face to glare blearily down the bar at the self-indulgent Succubus, a note of bitter resentment colored her tone and her words were slurred by intoxication, “who cares if he loves you? You already have Lauren, and she’s crazy about you. Does everybody in the world absolutely have to be in love with you?”_

_Tamsin let out a sharp bark of laughter and tossed back her last shot of whiskey. She slapped Maia across the shoulders chummily, more than amused by the snarky, nasty tone the ordinarily soft-spoken human took with the whining mess on her other side, and the incredulous, offended glare Bo sent her in return._

_“Take. Her. Home.” Trick’s voice was soft with stern warning, his eyes widened with his irritation, and he dropped his rag onto the counter to begin wiping up the sticky mess Tamsin, Maia and Bo had left there. When Tamsin didn’t move to leave, Trick leaned in to drive his impatience with her home, “Now.”_

_Tamsin finally raised both hands in surrender and slurped down the shot Maia had left untouched._

_“Okay, fine. But the walking whiskey-skin has a point,” Tamsin shrugged and slipped off her stool, one arm wound around Maia, whose head, bright red in an arc along the side she’d settled against her cast, lolled around her shoulders haphazardly. “Come on, Kid. Let’s get you home.” With a grunt, Tamsin managed to pull Maia off her seat. The curly-haired brunette grinned, her gaze dizzy and disoriented, at the Valkyrie that supported her, and dropped her head onto Tamsin’s shoulder._

_“Oh, and I take my earlier statement back,” Tamsin paused at Bo’s shoulder, a bright, mischievous grin curled at the corners of her mouth, “she might be a lightweight, but at least she’s funny when she’s drunk.”_

_“Totally worth claiming!” Maia laughed loudly, her gaze entirely disoriented and her smile sloppily arranged on her face. She stumbled against Tamsin as they shifted away from the bar toward the door. Tamsin replied with an affirmative colored with expletives, and a hoarse chuckle of her own, and the slinking, murky shadows that lurked just outside curled around the pair as they left like a malevolent breeze and they were gone._

_Bo sighed unhappily, her gaze fixed on the discarded tumbler in front of her and she picked it up again. She didn’t intend to drink anymore, but it was something to do other than clench her fists until her nails broke the soft skin of her palms._

_“But you did know,” Bo’s voice was soft, she didn’t raise her eyes to glance at Trick, who scrubbed away at the bar top distractedly. It hurt Bo to know that everyone had known before her – and not only because it was a secret kept deliberately from her, like so many others before. It bothered her because, as a Succubus, Bo should have seen it. She could read auras like people read street-signs and picture books, and Dyson’s aura should have told her the instant he’d taken his love back from the Norn. How long had she been completely blind to the people around her, to the friends she claimed to value?_

_Trick paused momentarily. He looked at his granddaughter, and Bo finally looked up to meet his gaze. His expression was studious, a little inward, but not guarded._

_“Yes. I knew. But I think this is something you need to discuss with him,” Trick’s rough voice was soft, and was almost lost amid the steady hum of the Dal’s busy ambiance. But his eyes, dark in the bar’s dim light, finally settled on hers, and they were frank, and honest, and sympathetic. “I’m sure he has his reasons for not telling you, Bo.”_

_“Forgot my glasses!”_

_Bo jumped a foot in her seat and twisted around to see Maia crashing into the bar beside her. Her face was flushed with the copious amounts of alcohol she’d consumed and the cold wind that blew unrelentingly outside, and her eyes glittered in the low lighting of the bar. She snatched her glasses and shoved them crookedly onto her face before collapsing against the stool Tamsin had vacated mere minutes ago and gave Bo a hard, considering look._

_“Everyone knew, Bo,” she started, ignoring the disapproving frown on Trick’s face and the irritated scowl on Bo’s, “it was obvious, as plain as the nose on your face.” Maia pressed her finger to the tip of her nose and went cross-eyed trying to stare at it. For a long minute, Bo just sat and stared at the odd little human skeptically. Finally, just as Bo opened her mouth to mumble an incoherent brushoff, Maia abruptly straightened and blinked._

_“The question you need to be asking is: ‘Why couldn’t I see it?’” Maia’s head tilted and she gave Bo a considering look. Bo shivered and shifted uncomfortably. She felt like Maia wasn’t simply looking at her, but like she was staring straight into her soul. It was a stripping, piercing stare, but it was brief, and Bo found when she looked back into Maia’s eyes, partly concealed by the shine of her glasses, that the expression in them was one of kindness and empathy. For a brief instant, she almost reminded Bo of Kenzi._

_“There’s a lot you’ve been missing that’s right in front of your face, Bo,” Maia’s voice softened, cold fingers reached to brush lightly along Bo’s forearm, “maybe you just need to stop looking at everything from behind your own eyes. Get a little perspective.”_

_“You mean walk a mile in Dyson’s shoes?”_

_“In everybody’s shoes,” Maia nodded in affirmation and pulled away. Her smile was thin and tight. Bo bit her lip and stared at the young woman that slouched on the stool opposite her and remembered suddenly the reason that Maia had come drinking with Tamsin in the first place: to mourn the death of a woman she’d loved. The anger and irritation she’d felt with Maia slipped away, shattered in the face of the compassion and circumspection such a nobody in her life had shown her with a few words and a little advice._

_“You have a lot going on right now, and you have to focus on your Dawning,” Maia’s voice was soft, but Bo could hear it clearly through the steady, unrelenting hum of noise and conversation around her, “sometimes the best way to focus on yourself is to focus on other people. The only way you can see the whole picture is by looking at everything else in it, right?”_

_“Thanks,” Bo nodded and returned Maia’s thin smile with a weak one of her own. Tamsin’s blond hair and anxious face flashed from the door, it tore Bo’s attention from the curly-haired brunette sitting opposite her, and she gave a forced nod in the Valkyrie’s direction. “Are you going to be okay?”_

_Maia’s guarded smile opened a little, she understood the question wasn’t directed toward her intoxicated condition, or the Valkyrie that had claimed her with questionable intentions._

_“Yeah. I’m good,” Maia sighed and shrugged, “or… I will be, anyway.” Her eyes slunk to the blonde that waved her hands in the air in an unsubtle demand to get going, and she rolled her eyes before hopping off her stool. “Right. Glad to have been of service!” Maia slapped the counter with an open palm to signify her finality and shuffled away from the bar top, her gait still ungainly and her steps clumsy and uncoordinated. She paused within earshot and turned back around to look at Bo, her eyebrows were raised in an expression Bo couldn’t quite read._

_“She’s really a lot better than you guys give her credit for, by the way,” Maia cocked her head towards Tamsin, to indicate who she was referring to, “once you gain a little perspective.”_

_Bo almost laughed at the lopsided wink the scrawny human gave her. She felt Trick’s presence as he moved closer to her, their arms brushed when he leaned over the freshly polished surface of his bar._

_“I couldn’t have given you better advice myself,” his breath tickled in her ear when he spoke, she could smell the smoky sweetness of whiskey on his breath. He stared after Maia contemplatively before she disappeared with Tamsin out the door, then turned his soulful brown eyes on Bo._

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since this chapter is a short one, chapter 7 will be posted on Friday. So keep a weather eye out for it, and Happy Thanksgiving fellow Americans! :)

It was still early, but the Dal was already getting its first rush of evening revelers. Outside, the sun was just beginning to set, the sky was aflame with dark gold and blushing copper, and the blue that lingered at its edges and eventually crept again closer and closer to the horizon was slowly deepening into a velvety blanket of rich, royal purple.

Bo slipped in through the nondescript wooden door of the pub, her cheeks ruddy with the cool breeze that played between the buildings. The Dal was brightly lit, and warm, and Bo shrugged deeper into her jacket to shake off the evening’s cold as she gave the bar a quick sweep with her sharp brown eyes. People milled around tables and at the bar itself, ordering pitchers of beer and bowls of pretzels to go around. She breathed in the quiet hum of conversation and music playing softly in the background, allowed herself to relax in the familiar, safe ambiance of one of her favorite haunts for many, many years, since she had sworn her fealty to the Blood King.

And there was Lauren, perched precariously on a stool close to the door. Her hair fell in a soft curtain of glimmering gold around her face and shoulders, and Bo ached to lean in and breathe in its sweet, warm scent. But Bo only stood for a moment to watch, even as people jostled and pushed around her to move in and out of the lively pub.

Bo had always loved to watch Lauren in her element. Even before the Norn had taken her love from her, when jealousy had boiled low in her stomach at the flirtatious smiles and gestures she shared with others. Even now, when those flirtatious smiles and gestures were directed towards Dyson. It was fascinating, watching the Succubus move and talk, a glowing beacon lost in a sea of admirers. Lauren was always so graceful, so composed. Her delicate movements, the subtle flutter of her fingers, the heavy-lidded hooding of her eyes, the shy, come-hither smile… Bo could watch Lauren for hours, could be entranced by her every action, her every word, with a fascination borne out of love, out of reverence.

But Lauren’s movements today seemed oddly stiff, forcibly controlled. There was an intensity in those bright tawny eyes that worried the Wolf. And rather than stare in sublime fascination at the woman who’d stolen her heart, Bo forced herself to move from the door and lean nonchalantly against the counter at Lauren’s side. Bo had a job to do. Today, she was a cop, asking a P.I. to help her with her investigation.

“Bo! Hey! How are you?” Lauren’s tone was oddly high-pitched, at least to a Wolf’s sensitive hearing. Bo tilted her head at the woman seated before her, noted the edgy way she glanced around herself at the other patrons at the bar, the hungry looks she gave them as they brushed past her. A coffee, an espresso by the smell and look of it, sat steaming in front of the Succubus, and Lauren took little, short sips from it.

“Hey, Lauren. I have a favor to ask of you,” Bo’s nostrils flared, her words were quiet and a little guarded. She hadn’t seen Lauren like this in a very long time. The Succubus’ movements were choppy and sharp, and it made Bo a little uneasy to see it.

Lauren took another drink of her coffee, her face pulled into a grimace at the bitterness of it, and she set it down again. Bo frowned at the tense, jittery hand that fluttered in acquiescence in her direction.

“Sure, great. I’ll do it.”

“You haven’t even heard what ‘it’ is,” Bo fingered the file she’d tucked under her arm, her discomfort at Lauren’s uncharacteristic behavior grew with every passing second.

Lauren’s sigh sounded frustrated, “Let’s just say…” Lauren’s attention jumped suddenly to a point somewhere behind Bo, her expression turned wistful, and Bo spun around to see the strutting woman that had taken Lauren’s interest so suddenly, “… I could use the distraction,” Lauren’s words fell to a sigh, and she spun on her stool to follow the pretty little brunette with her eyes as she sauntered past.

“Okay,” Bo responded after a moment, giving Lauren the minute she needed to regain her composure, “I need you to pose as a therapist at a New Age clinic.”

Lauren’s eyebrows twisted with her skepticism.

“How am I supposed to convince the clinic that I’m a doctor?”

Bo was prepared for Lauren’s skepticism at least, if not her frazzled nerves and fidgety state. Bo produced a framed diploma from the misshapen file she carried under her arm and presented it to Lauren with a slight flourish.

“Ta-da,” Bo’s voice was only slightly less than enthusiastic. Lauren was already downing another long gulp from her swiftly disappearing espresso, and Bo’s Wolfy-senses were tingling with suspicion.

“Doctor Helen Green from the Sedona Center for Psychological and Spiritual Healing,” Lauren accepted the diploma in both hands even as she rattled off its certification. Skepticism still clouded her features. Even with her face lined by her obvious tension and doubt, Lauren was beautiful, and it made Bo smile to see the Succubus turn in her seat to face her, to see the lines of her face glowing against the light of the bar. Her breath when she spoke smelled of coffee and that sweet, honeyed flavor that Bo had long since come to associate with Lauren. Even the annoyance that filtered her expression and words brightened the smile that lit Bo’s features. Lauren dropped the diploma on the table, her mouth twisted into a dismayed frown that threatened to make Bo laugh. “I couldn’t have gone to Harvard?”

“You haven’t seen the clinic,” Bo couldn’t help but smirk.

“What am I looking for?” Lauren’s coffee was in her hands again, and she tilted it to drink before realizing it was empty.

“Well…” This time, it was Bo to drop her file onto the waxed surface on the bar in front of Lauren, “this is a list of all our vics. We need you to access their patient files, find out why they’re doing these crazy stunts and killing themselves,” Bo’s voice dropped to a low whisper. She leaned in to Lauren conspiratorially, and was instantly flooded by her sweet, honey-suckle scent.

The file was instantly opened between Lauren’s hands, and she frowned down at the pages that depicted the pictures and CODs of all the victims that had been connected so far with the Better Way Clinic. Lauren hummed in consideration, her focus finally on the task at hand.

“Sounds, uh…” And just as quickly as Bo had gained Lauren’s focus, it was gone. The Succubus’ gaze rose to the Fae that strode past her, and the file closed again as she spun around in her stool to stare as a well-built, well-dressed man slipped past, “delicious…” the end of Lauren’s sentence came in a low, distracted mumble. The sigh Lauren uttered and the frustrated expression on her face as she spun all the way around back to the bar troubled Bo. Now, the Wolf was truly starting to worry. She hadn’t seen Lauren behave this way in months, even years, since the Succubus had finally learned how to curb her hunger, how to feed safely, and had begun receiving shots from the human doctor to help her.

And Bo knew very well that Lauren must be feeding. She knew Lauren and Dyson had finally bridged the gap between friends and lovers, that they’d owned to their feelings and decided to give a relationship a real shot, instead of dancing around their attraction. As much as Bo had ached to tell Lauren just how she felt, to explain to her that she had gotten her love back from the Norn, she had held back for just that reason. Because Lauren was finally happy, even if it was with a human doctor.

But the way Lauren was behaving now… it raised certain questions for Bo. And the answers Lauren might give her wishful heart could change everything.

So the Wolf tilted her head backward, her hair whispering over her shoulders and falling down her back, and wrinkled her nose in concerned confusion at the beautiful, frustrated, sexy Succubus sitting in front of her.

“You know,” Bo began, her tone a little joking and a little suspicious, all at once, “if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you looked a little…”

Lauren perked up, as if sensing the coming adjective, “Smart?” she challenged, “gorgeous?” her eyebrows rose aggressively and she bobbed towards Bo on her stool, like a boxer feinting an attack, “tall?”

“Hungry.” Bo leveled her gaze on the prickly blonde, though her voice was soft and her expression concerned. She wanted Lauren to know she wasn’t challenging her, only that she was worried, and it worried Bo more to see how eager Lauren was to argue, how twitchy her movements were, and how easily distracted she was by any and every half-attractive morsel that crossed her path.

Lauren shrunk back in her seat, instantly deflated, and Bo knew immediately that she was right.

“You and Dyson didn’t…” Bo slashed her fingers across her throat to express termination, her thoughts hopeful and concerned all at once, “… did you?”

“No!” Lauren pulled back in her seat, her expression at once annoyed and defensive, and Bo cringed inwardly at what she sensed was coming next, “and P.S., our sex life is awesome,” Lauren picked up her coffee again, her tone slid easily from pissed off and defensive to proud and defensive within a few, short words, “maybe a little _too_ awesome.” The Succubus tilted her coffee cup at Bo, and a grin that Bo had grown to love crept onto Lauren’s lips. It was a happy smile, and the glow that Bo had begun to recently recognize as Dyson’s doing beamed through the thin lines of frustration on Lauren’s face, and those lines faded away in that glow’s wake.

Envy and hurt burned low in Bo’s belly, but also a small sense of relief to see Lauren still so happy. It always left her feeling so conflicted: to ache to be the cause of Lauren’s joy, but also to be so glad just to see it, even though it hurt.

Lauren hadn’t the faintest idea that Bo’s love had been returned to her, and Bo wanted to keep it that way, to keep Lauren happy and blissful and un-conflicted. So she smiled her best smile and nodded her head and compartmentalized and buried every complicated emotion she felt for the sake of the woman she called, in her heart of hearts, her mate.

“Okay!” Bo responded cheerfully, “just askin’,” her voice fell to a resigned mumble, though she kept her smile firmly glued to her lips. “I think though,” Bo leaned in to take Lauren’s cup from her hands, “…someone here has had enough coffee for the day.” She gently guided the empty cup back to the table, her lips pressed into a tired, unhappy line despite herself, and watched Lauren push it away desultorily once it finally rested on the table.

It _was_ hard, seeing Lauren with another person. _Especially_ when that other person was Dyson.

It hadn’t always been hard. It hadn’t been hard when the Norn had taken her love from her. It hadn’t been hard when it was Ryan that courted Lauren, even if the self-involved, arrogant prick was Dark Fae and bad news. It had pissed her off a little, but it hadn’t hurt to see the way Ryan looked at her, or the way she stared back lustily at him. It hadn’t even hurt at the beginning, when she’d finally returned to the precinct after a long disappearance, trying to fill the empty void that was left behind when the Norn had taken away everything that mattered to her, in return for Lauren’s life.

Sometimes, Bo wondered which had been worse: the emptiness that had hollowed her out when she’d given away her love, or the way her lungs deflated and her stomach clenched and her heart ached now, whenever she saw Lauren with Dyson. One was a cold emptiness that had taken everything that Bo was, everything that she’d loved and valued, and turned her alien, into someone she couldn’t recognize. The other was a ceaseless, throbbing ache that constantly threatened to overtake her. Both destroyed her.

But seeing Lauren in love with someone else destroyed her a little more.

Still, she wouldn’t give away the love she’d lost for all the empty relief in the world. Even if the grief she felt destroyed her equilibrium, and left her lost in a mire of breathless anguish and distraction.

It wasn’t always this bad. There were days when the shadow Bo found herself living under simply seemed to blend in with the colorless, bleak days that spread before her, and it was easier for Bo to lose herself in her work as a detective and find some small comfort in the afternoons she spent boxing with Tamsin and the evenings they spent drinking at the Dal. Lauren was happy, it had been all too clear to Bo the first time she’d caught her mate with the human doctor. And as much as Bo wished Lauren could be happy with her, she was grateful that Lauren was happy, at least.

But there were other days when thoughts of Lauren flooded her like a swarm of locusts, and blotted out every moment with the hopelessness of living life without her. On these days, Bo found it hard to focus on anything. Her thoughts and movements would turn sluggish, her attitude surly, and it was all Bo could do to get through the crippling pain of losing her mate, and seeing her with another.


	7. Chapter 7

_It was rare to hear the sound of crickets chirping from inside the Dal, especially at such an early hour. But tonight, the sweet, soothing chorus filtered through the still air, barely muffled by the thick brick walls of the unusually quiet pub. Bo could even hear the steady hum of the electric and gas lights, sucking in energy and oxygen to keep flickering warmly and unsteadily against the smooth, polished surface of the bar, where a range of empty tumblers and tankards and shot glasses were scattered in an abandoned array around her. Even Trick was downstairs, in his lair, and Bo could just hear the scrape of his furniture, and the muffled crackle of pages turning and the dull thump of books being organized as he moved around and tidied his home. Tonight had been a short celebration, a congratulation to Bo for successfully completing the Game, and receiving her official invitation to the Dawning, and tomorrow would return to business and training as usual. Just for a couple more days before her Dawning would begin._

_And Bo only leaned against the bar with her eyes closed, drinking in the almost-silence, the unsettled stillness and tense peace that surrounded her as if it were one of the last she might feel for the rest of her life. Because, for all Bo knew, it might be. Carefully, slowly, she sipped at the dregs of the wine in her glass, rolled the rich, warm bitterness in her mouth, tasted the woody oak tones and inhaled the smoky sweetness with an appreciation not necessarily for its flavor, but for the simple awareness of appreciation._

_She was only alone for a few minutes, it had not been long since Kenzi had retreated to Trick’s study to further annoy the old bartender, or since Dyson and Hale had bid her good luck and left for home, before the door to the Dal scraped open again and Bo found herself with company once more._

_She’d been texting Lauren all evening, trying to apologize to her for missing her girlfriend’s awards ceremony the night before, but hadn’t heard back all night. So Bo was bitterly disappointed when short blond curls, arranged in a messy halo around a ruggedly handsome face, poked in through the door and Dyson stepped fully inside._

_“Bo,” his low, scratchy voice was as uncertain as his expression, he allowed the door to fall shut behind him and took another tentative step in Bo’s direction, “I just wanted to say…” he hesitated, it gave Bo enough time to plunk her wineglass on the bar and close the distance between them._

_“What?” Bo’s voice was a little more aggressive than she’d intended, but her heart beat heavily in her chest and anxiety and anger coiled low in her belly together. She’d managed enough patience with him to get through their last minute celebration earlier, but now she was too tired and too frightened to try to manage any more. And it had been over a week since Bo had discovered Dyson had taken his love back from the Norn, and though she’d tried, desperately, to take Maia’s advice and understand Dyson’s reticence, she couldn’t seem to make herself see why he still hadn’t confessed to her._

_Dyson was never one to cow in the face of aggression however. Like the Alpha he clearly was, the Wolf drew himself up, and his expression turned hard and stoic, and he set his shoulders back and stared down at Bo in a way that instantly made her regret her rash annoyance._

_“I just wanted to say: good luck,” his voice was soft, but it surrounded Bo with a familiarity and sense of safety Bo longed for in the chaotic, messy, frightening weeks she’d pushed herself through. She frowned up at the Wolf she’d once loved, once given her whole heart to, and struggled not to rebel against the feeling of security that low, rumbling tone tried to give her now. She held his gaze for a long minute before she felt herself deflate in submission, and heaved a heavy, tired sigh, and dropped her hands on his chest. She could feel his heart beat under her fingertips, strong and steady and reliable, under the rough, curly hair that grew on his chest and the soft shirt he wore, and spread her fingers widely across to feel it all the better._

_“Thanks,” her muttered words were almost drowned out by the soft symphony of the crickets outside, but Bo knew he heard her. She could hear his breath escape his nostrils when he relaxed and smiled, though she focused her gaze on her fingers splayed across his chest. His large, strong hands brushed the hair back from her shoulders and settled in its place, warm and comforting._

_“You know, there’s a way for me to come with you,” his rough voice was soft and a little hesitant. Bo chanced a glance up at him, his eyes glimmered down at her, opaque and swirling with turmoil, “if I offer myself as Hand.”_

_Bo took a step back, her face tightened into a scowl, and she drew her hands down beside her, clenched into fists. The memory of Dyson, beaten and hobbling on a shattered ankle, but still willing to fight and die for her at O’Meara’s mansion, flashed in the whirling tumult of her thoughts, and though Bo had been distracted at the time, she’d seen the shift in his attitude, the understanding he’d suddenly experienced that Bo could fight, and win, her own battles, and the acknowledgement of the strength he’d loved and ignored in her until that point. The way he’d been behaving since – the backseat he’d taken in all of Bo’s struggles, the supporting role he’d assumed – Bo had believed that Dyson had finally understood that Bo was not simply another maiden in distress. Perhaps he had finally understood it, for a little while._

_“No way,” Bo’s answer was immediate. She crossed her arms over her chest and glowered up at him, furious that he’d even offered._

_“Do you even know what that means?” Dyson chuckled quietly, the anxious lines of his face softened considerably by the expression and he smiled down at Bo, undeterred and undaunted by the angry scowl she returned him._

_“I don’t have to, to know that you’re up to something,” she retorted, “this is my fight. Did it ever occur to you that I don’t need taking care of?” Though Bo’s words started sharply, biting and aggressive, they softened as she spoke. Her arms fell to her sides again, and the scowl she’d worn melted into a tired frown. She didn’t want to fight with Dyson. She was tired of fighting with Dyson. And she didn’t want to say anything she couldn’t take back._

_Dyson dropped his head, defeated. He’d known the offer would be met with refusal, this much was clear to Bo in the subtle way he shook his head and smiled at her through his worry. But that he’d made the offer anyway meant the world to Bo._

_The smile on Dyson’s lips trembled for a minute, but held, and when Bo stepped close to him again, and dropped her hands on his chest once more, he grasped her hands in his to give emphasis to his softly spoken words, “I know. I just want to be here for you.”_

_Bo’s eyebrows knit into a tight frown at the tender, worried smile he gave her._

_“Why?” she asked simply, her fingers tightened over the creases of his shirt, and she could feel her lips tremble with the tension that stiffened her frame and corded the muscles along her shoulders. His fingers pressed gently into them, rubbed unconsciously in an effort to ease her discomfort and anxiety, and he looked down at her for a moment contemplatively before his smile faded and his expression sombered, and he answered as simply as she’d asked._

_“Because I love you.”_

_Though Bo had already known, for some time now, the simplicity and forthrightness of his answer took her aback. Her hands fell from his chest, her mouth dropped open, and his own hands slid from her shoulders. She stared up at him almost incredulously, her expression drawn and tight, and stepped back a little, as if taking more of him in visually would somehow gain her insight._

_“Was that so hard to say?” her tone was harsher than she’d intended, she didn’t mean to scold. And Bo realized that instead of the relief she thought she’d feel at his confession, frustration rolled instead, and the anger and tension she’d managed to suppress, for the most part, until this moment, were finally breaking free. She felt herself tense with it, and clenched her hands on either side of her in a futile attempt to reign it all in._

_Dyson’s shoulders fell and his chin dipped. “You’re with Lauren now,” he sounded resigned and he shrugged helplessly at her, “I can’t say that I like it, but I respect it.”_

_Bo’s anger and frustration, coiling and rumbling in a thunderhead in her chest, finally broke loose, and she slammed her fist into his shoulder to give vent to it. Dyson fell back a step with a grunt softened by quiet, almost surprised laughter, and rather than face the chivalry and charm that disgusted and annoyed her so much right now, Bo spun on her heel and stomped away._

_“God, I won’t be much help setting up for the Ceremony if I’m crippled.” Bo could hear the grin in his words while he joked, and she scowled, though with her back turned to him, she knew he couldn’t see it._

_“You’re not going to be much help to anyone if you’re pining away for me, you moron!” Bo finally turned back around to face him, comprehension spreading across her features like furious thunder rolling in from a great distance. “Wait,” horror and anger flared in Bo’s eyes, dark and glinting in the flickering light of the Dal, “was that supposed to be some suicide mission?” The way Dyson shook his head and looked away from her only stoked Bo’s growing anger, her voice rose with her frustration, “some kind of male honor bullshit?!”_

_“I offered because I want to be there for you,” his voice was soft and low, but Bo could hear the growl he suppressed, and ignored it._

_“Why?”_

_“Because you would do the same for me.” Dyson moved slowly, he stepped in close to Bo, his voice still soft and low, but the growl in his tone was gone and replaced by something more intimate and tender. The shadows that fell flickeringly across his face played over the lines of worry on his brow, and he stared down at Bo as if trying to pour all the love he felt in his heart for her through his eyes and into hers. “Because in the last three years, I’ve learned more from you than I’ve learned in the first fifteen hundred from every other person I’ve ever met.” His rough hands enveloped Bo’s. She could feel her heart slam in her chest and beat in time with the pulse that pounded through his fingertips into hers, and she couldn’t turn away from the intensity of his gaze. “Even if I can’t have you, even if I can’t be with the woman that I love with every ounce of my being…” Dyson’s words faded away, replaced by a self-deprecating chuckle and a smile so sad it brought tears to Bo’s eyes. “Look, I’m just a Wolf,” he laughed quietly, his voice so soft it seemed to drown among the quiet, rhythmic chirping of the crickets outside, “standing in front of a Succubus, asking her to –“_

_“A-hole!” Bo yanked her hands free of his and slammed her fist into Dyson’s shoulder again. Fury and frustration broke again, and her voice shook with emotion despite her attempt to hide it by shouting._

_Dyson fell back and laughed, the lines on his face disappearing behind the mirth of his expression. “I deserve that!” he grunted, his own voice breaking with his laughter._

_“You are the most frustrating, stubborn, ass-face that I have ever met!” Bo shouted back at him, arms waving with her aggravation and her face twisted with hurt and grief and despair._

_“Hey, I don’t like me much either, trust me!” Dyson was still laughing, it only aggravated Bo more to see him this way, so accepting and self-deprecating. His light laughter fueled Bo’s anger, and she stomped toward him, her jaw clenched and her tears beginning to spill over and her heart tight with a desperation she didn’t expect to feel._

_“Stop! Stop being so charming, this isn’t the time, okay? I will kill you!” Her words left her in a rush of air, half-growled and half-hearted. He had loved her for months now, and hadn’t said a word, hadn’t interfered, had been selfless and suffered silently, and he’d done it because he loved her. Because he loved her enough to see her happy with someone else and cared more for her happiness and comfort than for his own. It broke Bo’s heart, and the realization of all this melted away Bo’s anger. The vise-grip her frustration with him held over her slipped away and she was left with nothing but sympathy for his pain and a deeper love, understanding and trust for the man that had stood by her side since the beginning._

_Bo stared up at Dyson, her eyes still filled with tears and his warm breath breaking across her face, and felt herself calm as the seconds slipped past them, unnoticed, uncounted, like so many others they’d shared, and when she finally broke the stillness between them, her words were quiet and trembling in the pregnant silence, “So what happens now?”_

_“Nothing,” he answered, his voice as quiet as hers and his tone as intimate. His hand ghosted up her arm and she felt the gentle pressure of his fingertips against her neck, a light current of electricity that left her skin burning with the intensity of his touch, “But ask me again in a hundred years, when things are different…” Dyson leaned in, and Bo closed her eyes at the familiarity of this gesture, lost to the moment and the chorus of crickets that seemed to escalate around them. The last of his words fell across her mouth, lips brushed to lips, a final sweet kiss that tingled against her skin and blinded her with the weight of its meaning: ‘Goodbye,’ it said, ‘for now.’_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know. This chapter was actually kind of Dybo. Don’t fret, and don’t panic, it’s the last one, and one I felt that I, at least, needed for closure on their relationship. We had it in the series, and I was missing it in my story, so the chapter of Bo and Dyson is over, for at least the next century. Yay!


	8. Chapter 8

Bo couldn’t say she hadn’t expected to feel this way. She had known what it would do to her, to offer herself so fully up to Lauren in the way that she had, with no strings attached.

The phrase was meaningless, Bo discovered. There was never any situation in which two people slept together and there were no strings attached. Not really. Every small, subtle interaction between two people always left at least the thinnest wisp of a connection, and the less than subtle interaction Bo had shared with Lauren, even if it was out of necessity for the latter, had dragged Bo along by a thick, heavy, throbbing umbilical cord.

Not that Bo would ever have done it any other way. Lauren had been bleeding internally, and if they had waited to take her to a hospital, she might not have survived the trauma. Bo would have gladly given her life for Lauren’s safety, and in a way, perhaps she already had.

The sex had been quick, and passionate, and fervent: all teeth and tongues and grunts of pain and pleasure, shoved up against a cold wall and grinding against cold steel tables that steamed over with every sizzling touch. And Lauren had walked away without a scratch, without a dent, but for the overwhelming guilt of having cheated on her monogamous lover – even if it was out of necessity.

But for Bo, it had been more than just primal urges and toe-curling climaxes. She had taken Lauren’s internal hemorrhage and carried it for her. She felt herself bleeding inside, the emotions she’d kept locked and hidden as deep within as she could contain them were spilling out and leaving a messy, bloody trail of anguish and despair and loneliness behind. Her gut wrenched with the gaping hole Lauren had left in her wake when she’d dressed hurriedly and rushed out of the precinct: a throbbing ache Bo didn’t know how to ease and had accepted with a morbid, macabre willingness to absorb all of Lauren’s pain and make it her own.

“Ms. Dennis, are you alright?”

The pudgy psychiatrist opposite her was leaning towards her in his plush leather armchair, an expression of concern painted clearly across his chubby face. Lines squiggled across his brow, his greying hair thinned visibly over the top of his head and his glasses flashed in the dim lighting of his office. Bo smiled thinly at him, the expression never quite reaching her eyes.

“Kind of,” she started, still somewhat lost in the broken muddle of her thoughts, “um…” she drew in a deep breath and focused on putting away her musings for examination later, when work wasn’t such a priority. But Lauren’s face still flashed behind her eyelids every time Bo blinked, and the sweet, honeyed scent of her lingered even through the overpowering smells of chemicals and the vanilla incense that burned on Doctor Palmer’s desk.

“You know, I actually think I do need a little help emotionally, doc,” Bo laughed self-deprecatingly and dropped her head into one hand. Her fingers rubbed across her brow to her temples in a futile attempt to smooth the lines of exhaustion and melancholy left there in Lauren’s wake.

A cat yowled, tearing Bo from her thoughts and bringing her attention to the little gray tabby crouched primly beside Doctor Palmer’s chair. It licked its chops at Bo, its feline eyes staring intently, almost challengingly at the Wolf that stared back with rapt attention.

Doctor Palmer seemed almost at a loss.

“Sorry about that, Doctor Bob is usually so friendly,” consternation colored the pudgy old man’s tone and drew lines in shadows across his face. The cat yowled again contrarily and dashed away into the shadows. Bo followed its movements until it vanished, the thin, polite smile on her face turning to one of bemusement.

“Must be my dogs,” she offered in explanation, “I have dogs.” Bo licked her lips and glanced back towards the shadows into which the cat disappeared. If nothing else, the cat – Doctor Bob – had brought her focus back to the task at hand: the question of whether Doctor Palmer himself was Fae. How apropos, that she’d been the one to come and smell out Palmer’s true identity, when she might actually be in need of a psychiatrist’s professional help with the sticky issue that had sent her here to investigate in the first place.

Bo drew in a deep breath, and the overpowering smells of chemicals and vanilla and cat litter assaulted her senses again. They clogged her nose, and the subtler scents of the Fae were lost to their jarring, corrosive odor. She breathed in deeply again, trying to pick up any underlying smells, but could smell nothing else.

“Allergies?” Doctor Palmer peered at her through his round, thick-rimmed glasses. Bo wondered if that expression of concerned consternation was just a reaction to her slightly odd behavior or if it was simply a fixture on his flabby face.

“No,” she responded, still trying to sort through the barrage of smells she’d gathered through her powerful nose, “I smell layers… chemical compounds, a… hint of vanilla,” Bo’s face scrunched a little, partly in detached disgust and partly in focused contemplation.

“Oh… Oh gosh, is it the incense, the candles,” he waved his fingers at the scented sticks smoldering slowly on his desk beside him, before cocking his head forward and furrowing his brow, “the cat litter?”

Bo drew in another deep breath, her head tilted toward the side in an attempt to draw in as many different scents as she could catch, and Doctor Palmer’s eyebrows rose comically in avid, confused curiosity.

“I must say you have a remarkable sense of smell,” his wonder showed in his voice, it was almost enough to make Bo laugh. It was also enough to tell Bo that this rotund, pudgy creature was likely not Fae, he lacked the imagination to pick up on all the social cues that told him he was in the presence of another, and even through the cat litter, at such a close approximation, Bo was quite sure she should have been able to pick up on any non-human scents he might emit.

Still, it was frustrating to Bo that even her Wolfy senses could not pick up on any other scents in the vicinity. How could everything be slipping away from her so slowly? To lose Lauren in the way that she had, to have slept with her to save her life, only to watch her run back into the arms of her human lover, and now, to lose a part of her that made her Fae, even if it was only temporary, and caused by an outside influence?

“It’s usually a little more remarkable, actually,” Bo nodded her agreement, though her brow scrunched with her own anxious confusion. Was she truly so inadequate, as a Fae and as a lover, that she could not help Lauren even with this simple task?

“Well,” Doctor Palmer’s grating, nasally voice interrupted Bo’s steady stream of self-loathing. He straightened himself in his chair and wove his hands together on his lap, apparently ready to begin the session that Bo hadn’t really planned on attending. “Shall we begin?”

Well, if she wasn’t going to discover the actual whereabouts or identity of the Fae she, Tamsin and Lauren were hunting down, she may as well get a little insight and a little inside help with the feelings that had clouded her mind and had sat a tangled, jumbled, festering mess in her chest.

“Sure,” Bo rearranged herself on the couch opposite Doctor Palmer’s, her face still twisted in consternation and disapproval and more than a little skepticism, then dropped her palms on her knees and closed her eyes. The tinkling, musical sound of wind chimes danced in the air somewhere outside, and after a moment of simply listening to them and the quiet of the room, Doctor Palmer began.

“Your arms and legs… feel heavy,” his voice was lower than it had been before, and he spoke slowly. Bo willed herself to relax, to feel the heaviness Doctor Palmer suggested. Lauren lingered at the edges of her focus, a mirage in the corners of her eyes. “Slip deeper, and deeper… into a relaxed state.” Bo breathed slowly, ignored the aggressive scents that danced on the edge of her nose, and forced the muscles along her shoulders to drop, and the bunched, jangled nerves around her neck to relax. “Deeper,” Doctor Palmer’s voice began to drift, to swim in the blackness behind her eyes, far behind the laughing, tawny gaze of the woman she loved, a deep, rough accompaniment to the chimes that still rang somewhere out of sight, “and deeper.”

“Now,” Doctor Palmer’s voice became a background buzz in Bo’s consciousness, a suggestive guidance that she followed, leaving behind all the skepticism she held for the techniques the Doctor believed in, ones she found herself willing to believe in too, if it would only take away the doubt that curled in her belly and made her question everything about herself. If it would only lead her away from the sculpted-sugar lines of Lauren’s face, from the fire that danced under her skin whenever Lauren touched her. “I want you to reach way back into your earliest childhood,” like smoke curling in thin tendrils around her, Bo could feel herself get lost in the Doctor’s deep, rich voice. Her body relaxed, she followed the sound of his voice to wherever it led her. Still, Lauren followed, a sweet underline to everything that Bo ever did, ever since the unaligned Succubus had come running into her life. “Remember that time of endless possibilities and idyllic dreams. I want you to think about one of those dreams. Focus on it… Become it…”

There had been a time when Lauren had been a part of those endless possibilities, when she had been that idyllic dream. There had been a time when Bo had been the same for Lauren. And even as Bo focused on her childhood memories – on those times of long ago, before buildings and cars and civilization had sprung up about her, when the Fae and humans had lived almost side by side, one almost entirely aware of the other, almost accepting of the other – the sweet, honeyed scent of Lauren, the tawny eyes, the little dip just below her lower lip, followed her wherever she went. And every childhood dream Bo had ever had was saturated with thoughts of Lauren, had become caused by thoughts of Lauren.

Perhaps if Bo had become a Gryphon, like she’d dreamt as a child, rather than a Wolf, Lauren might still love her now. Perhaps if she’d been that creature of strength, the Norn might never have been able to steal away that precious love she’d had for Lauren, might never have dared.

Even in the glades, where Bo had grown up amongst her pack, ready and anxious to devote her life and pledge her fealty to her King, Lauren’s gentle laughter and shy, straightforward smiles and hooded eyes followed her. When pure, clean sunlight fell on Bo’s skin, it was Lauren’s gaze that fell upon her. When the sweet-smelling breeze – made thick by the rich, damp smells of moss and earth and growing things and sweet by the fragrant aromas of the flora that grew in a dazzling, colorful abundance all around her – kissed her face and filled her nostrils, it was Lauren’s breath, her sweet, dizzying scent, that kissed her face and left her lashes fluttering with its intensity. And when birdsong erupted in a chorus of ‘hello’s and ‘goodbye’s and ‘my, isn’t life sweet’s, it was Lauren’s voice, her laughter, that erupted in a chorus that made Bo’s heart sing with the simple joys of life.

And when Bo was only a pup, surrounded by friends and family that loved her, when she’d dreamed of being a Gryphon, it was for Lauren that Bo dreamed of being such a creature of strength and magnificence. It was for her, for Lauren’s love, that Bo dreamed of being the very best that she could be. And that past was lost in her present, and inextricably tangled into her future. There never was, and never would be a time, when Bo did or would not want to be the very, absolute best for her mate.

Wolves only mated once, and they mated for life. Past, present and future.

And in the dense fog of her oldest memories, Lauren’s voice called to her. It called her name, and it sounded sharp and sweet to Bo’s ears. When she turned, standing shirtless on the ledge from which she would fly into the endless sky, Lauren’s blond hair glinted in the sunlight and fluttered with the gentle breeze, and her warm brown eyes were crinkled against the sun’s bright glare. Bo smiled, filled her lungs with air that smelled faintly of honeysuckle, and was grateful.

“Lauren,” Bo breathed her name like a prayer, drank the sight of her like it was nectar, “I’m so glad you’re here to see my transformation.”

She was so beautiful, an angel standing against a backdrop of mundane gray buildings and roads. In a few minutes, Bo would jump off the edge and transform mid-fall. Her wings would spread and she’d cry into the endless, swallowing sky, the sun would glimmer off her pinions as she swooped and tumbled in the air, and when she landed beside Lauren, maybe Lauren would love her more. Maybe she’d bury those perfect, delicate fingers into the soft feathers around her neck and bury her face into her shoulder, and love her again.

“Into a Gryphon?” Lauren sounded breathless, as if she’d run up many flights of stairs to reach her. Bo always felt like that, when Lauren was near.

“I grew up hearing about them: a creature of strength and magnificence!” Bo felt the air rush around her bare shoulders, goading her, calling to her, “I wanted to be them so badly.” She turned her face into the wind, it ruffled the hair that fell down her back, but it was only Lauren’s eyes on her that tickled and warmed her skin.

“You are strong and magnificent,” Lauren’s voice approached her slowly, she could hear the steady click of Lauren’s heels on the cement floor of the roof. Bo’s heart expanded in her chest to hear Lauren’s voice grow close and soften. “You are a Wolf,” Lauren’s voice was right behind her now, “loved,” Bo turned, “by so many people.”

Bo stared at the woman that had stolen her heart, filled her eyes with the soft lines of her face, the warm shape of her mouth, the glow of her hair, and breathed in that sweet honeyed scent again. But if Bo didn’t have Lauren’s love, then no other man, woman, child or beast’s love ever mattered at all.

“Not by you,” she said softly. Lauren’s love was all that mattered, all that would ever matter. Lauren stared back at her, her mouth slightly open and her expression one of such mystification. She didn’t know that Bo loved her, how Bo loved her. And then Lauren hesitated.

“Bo…” Lauren took a step closer, close enough to touch, and her expression softened, “you are the Wolf. Strong. Fast. Fierce.”

If Lauren always looked at her the way that she looked at her now, Bo would be happy. The words that came from Lauren’s mouth made her swell with pride, but there were three words more she needed, ached to hear. The wind keened behind her, played with her hair, if Lauren were to reach out for her, Bo knew she would fall right into her arms. It was all Bo ever wanted.

“But my dream,” her dream of Lauren, past, present and future, called and sighed in the wind that ruffled through her long, dark hair. Lauren loved her, in that dream. And as much as she ached to fall into Lauren’s arms even now, into the arms of a woman that loved her only as a friend and found romantic bliss in the arms of another, she ached all the more to fall into the arms of the dream she’d had in Doctor Palmer’s office, where Lauren loved her, and only her.

“It was the dream of a child,” Lauren’s warm voice broke through Bo’s wishes, a puff of air that sent the seeds of a dandelion scattering and drifting in the wind.

Lauren’s arm reached up to her. Her outstretched fingers seared into Bo’s skin, demanding the satisfaction of Lauren’s soothing touch. And Lauren looked so anxious, so frightened, to see Bo leave. She didn’t understand that Bo would only change into something Lauren could love… But Bo never wanted to see such a worried expression cross Lauren’s face like that.

“Your Wolf is the dream of a woman,” Lauren’s voice was all Bo could hear, even past the whistling of the wind through her hair and the drone of cars on the streets far below, “a woman we all love.”

It was all she ever needed: to hear Lauren say that she loved her. It wasn’t the same, but it was close. And Lauren watched her with such a mix of hope and fear that Bo ached to wipe the fear away and replace it with something else, something better. “Come on,” Lauren encouraged her. She held her hand up for Bo to take, and with doubt twisting her face and the ache to see a smile grace the perfect lines of Lauren’s face again, Bo dropped her hand into Lauren’s and stepped down. Lauren’s arms were around her instantly, and the sensation of her skin brushing against Bo’s sent a wave of warmth rushing through her. It was such sweet relief to hold her again, to feel her nose brush her cheek, to smell that sweet, intoxicating scent again.

Lauren leaned in close and tilted her head up a little, and their lips met briefly in a moment that would never end for Bo, but was over far too soon, and Lauren breathed back in the Chi she’d taken at the police station hours before to heal. Bo wrapped her arms around her mate, loved her with everything she had left in her, and knew that she’d failed. But there was nothing more beautiful than the relief in her small smile, in the tears that rimmed her eyes, and the way she brushed her fingers against Bo’s cheek.

 

 

* * *

 

 

**Sadness and regret swirled low in the void that clung to and pulled around Bo. Dyson, the Wolf with the sad, faded, soulful eyes, the old soul that watched and loved her from the shadows, with the rich and complex history, followed her here. His memory danced around her, taunting and eerie, like the dance of some macabre skeleton jerking and jolting in reanimation.**

**But she hadn’t known! How could she have known that Dyson loved her, when his love had been taken from him by the Norn, so that he could lend her his strength the first time Bo ever faced her mother in battle? He had made it so utterly clear to her that his love for her was gone, and that it was never coming back.**

**But she should have known. Bo, the Succubus, should have seen that change in his sexual aura. It should have been obvious, and while it had been understandable for Bo to have missed it the first time, when the Garuda still threatened, Bo should have seen it after, in the weeks before she went into Hecuba prison to ferret out the warden’s corruption.**

**But Bo had been blind, and selfish, and so completely self-absorbed. The cold and the blackness and the emptiness that surrounded her dug deep into her skin, into her soul, and met the cold and blackness and emptiness within her. She was a Succubus, and secrets of the heart lay always bare to her. And yet, in her ignorance, she’d caused Dyson so much pain. If Bo could curl into a tight, little ball and sob in this cold, meaningless void, she would have. Her heart felt raw, and she ached with regret.**

**She said that she had fought for his love, that she had done everything she could to keep the old Hag from coming between them in the way that she had. But that wasn’t true, and Kenzi had shown her that so easily, so effortlessly, by coming to the Norn’s tree and chopping it down with a chainsaw. Small, weak, human Kenzi, who stood against the Norn with nothing to gain but slightly better odds that her best friend would survive in the battle against the Garuda. Bo had been too cowardly to face the Norn for a love she stood to gain, that she had felt herself. So who then, was the better woman, the stronger woman?**

**Cold nothingness swirled around Bo, her dry eyes throbbed in the blank darkness. When Dyson had gotten his love back, she’d been angry at him. Furious, that he’d gotten his love back and hadn’t told her, that he’d dared to keep even one more, self-preserving secret from her. And she’d doubted his feelings for her, doubted that the love he’d gotten back from the Norn was a love he felt for her. Wolves only mated once, she remembered that he’d told her that. And that, Bo knew without a doubt, had been real.**

**Bo was broken, and tainted. She knew she didn’t deserve the love she had, from Dyson, from Kenzi, from Trick. She’d abandoned them all, hurt them all, for her selfish needs and wants. And the cold that pulled and whined and tore at her now wasn’t only the void of whatever this frozen hell was, but the cold that came from somewhere deep inside her. She groped blindly in the darkness, searching, yearning for anything to take her out, to bring her away from herself, from her memories, from her inadequacies, and found nothing.**

**Perhaps, when Tamsin had come for her soon after her victory over the Garuda, Bo ought to have gone with her willingly. Whatever death the Morrigan and the Dark had in store for her might have been better than the abandonment and betrayal and cruelty she’d passed out to everyone she knew and loved. And it _had_ been her that had drained that Fae into a coma. She had fed from him, without thought, without restraint, without remorse, and it had only been a clue, a foreshadowing, of the rest to come.**

**But she had resisted, indignantly, self-righteously so. She lied to everyone she knew, had sworn that the feed hadn’t been hers, that she’d had nothing to do with the nameless, faceless man she’d left to die in the alleyway beside the Dal moments before she’d gone to be with Lauren. She’d lied, not to protect the people that she loved, but to protect herself from the incriminations, the anger, the consequences she didn’t want to face. She’d lied for worse reasons than Dyson had for omitting the truth, and she’d been angry with him for it. And what would his honesty have earned him, truly, when it was all said and done? Probably nothing more than the anger and resentment Bo had felt when she’d discovered his returned feelings for her.**

**Well… Tamsin may not have taken her to her reckoning then, but the darkness would claim her now. If there was anything other than nothing in this lack of existence, Bo thought her face now might have been wet with weak, pitiful tears. And she let go, let herself be eaten away by the black void that crowded her, that crawled across her numb consciousness, and assaulted her with memories and images and more hellish, heartfelt creations that only a guilt-ridden conscience could muster.**


	9. Chapter 9

It had taken all of Bo’s patience to get through the day. The halls were swarmed with kids, the bell rang, sweet and jangling and shrill, in her ears, and her heart soared with it in a swarm over the raucous laughter of teenagers, where the fluorescent lights buzzed and flickered and the air crackled with the intensity of a Friday afternoon.

Friday was Bo’s favorite day of the week. It had little to do with the weekend that stretched endlessly before her, then ended far too quickly before Bo had even realized it. It had little to do with the simple pleasure of sleeping in on a Saturday morning, or the Sunday morning cartoons Bo would never admit she still woke up early to watch. 

Bo’s favorite thing about Friday was the afternoon she spent in the company of her best friends, her crowd. It was the instant addition of Kenzi at her place, commandeering the radio to tune in to her favorite stations and pilfering snacks from the fridge. It was the leery, sometimes unpleasant, always perverted attitude that Vex brought with him, dressed in outrageous costumes and trading mascara secrets with them. It was Dyson, sometimes calm and serious and broody, sometimes full of life and joy, always with a laugh that boomed and reverberated across the walls and made butterflies explode in the pit of Bo’s stomach. And it was Lauren, quiet and nerdy, smart, subtly funny, whose shy smile stole Bo’s breath away and whose quiet strength and loyalty went always unappreciated and rarely noticed. It was Gramps too, who stayed home from the gastro-pub he’d opened to spend quality time with his granddaughter.

This was how it had been, for years. Ever since Bo and her Gramps moved to this busy little steel-and-cement city, running from a life that didn’t want them, that had rejected them. And Bo loved it. She loved being worshipped by her people, loved being the center of so much positive attention, loved the power it gave her to be surrounded by so many people that loved her.

Vex was the first to arrive after Gramps had driven Bo and Kenzi home. He showed up at their doorstep, half-dressed in a ridiculous stripper police-man uniform, meant, no doubt, to irritate the hell out of Dyson, who had dreamt of being a cop since he was in diapers. He grinned and struck a pose with a flourish, his heavily made-up face alight with mischief, before bouncing inside without the invitation he was sure he would receive. Kenzi cackled at his audacity, Bo stifled a laugh behind her hand, and Gramps raised an eyebrow, pursed his lips disapprovingly, and said nothing from behind the bar in the open kitchen, where he started to prepare dinner for his granddaughter and her friends.

Lauren arrived more quietly. She slipped in at Bo’s invitation, with a bashful smile that sent Bo’s heart fluttering and a look that lingered sweetly, appreciatively, at the way Bo’s mouth moved when she said hello. Immediately, she took her place beside Gramps in the kitchen, helpful and hard-working and polite, an expert with the paring knife and one of the best adolescent cooks Bo had ever known.

But when Dyson appeared, finally, an hour later than he usually did, he was not alone.

Bo, Kenzi and Vex had disappeared upstairs to Bo’s room, trading secrets and teasing each other mercilessly. Their taunts and dirty jokes turned physical, and Vex crossed a line that had blurred and faded from the countless times he’d stepped over it. And, like the countless times Vex dared to poke his toe over that little line, Kenzi and Bo were beating him over the head with pillows. Their laughter was loud, it almost drowned out the hard, muffled ‘whump’ of the pillows they battered across Vex’s hunched shoulders, and the slender, outrageous boy struggled to squirm out of reach of his attacker’s goose-feathered weapons. He was shouting, trying to be heard over the girls’ victorious laughter, and swallowing his own howls of mirth in between breaths, and the din was so loud the thin walls shook with it and Bo was sure she could hear her Gramps slamming on the ceiling downstairs with a broom in an attempt to quiet them down.

So they didn’t hear the muffled sound of four boots on wooden stairs, or see the mess of crazy blond curls arranged in a halo around Dyson’s face when he stepped around the corner into Bo’s bedroom. They only stopped when Vex crashed into Dyson’s chest in his scramble to get away from the hard-hitting pillows and the girls that chased him around the room. Dyson caught the smaller boy in his strong arms and held him there, an expression of surprise etched across his suntanned face, and a burble of surprised laughter echoing in his deep chest.

Bo and Kenzi dropped their weapons to their sides, totally out of breath and their faces breaking with matching, triumphant grins that stretched from ear to ear.

“Hey guys,” Dyson’s deep, clear voice echoed in the sudden quiet, and a smile broke across his handsome features, “glad to see you haven’t started the fun without me.”

Bo straightened, the grin on her face widened, and she tilted her chin down and greeted Dyson with a smile she hoped looked flirtatious and sexy. She started to shrug and opened her mouth to respond with an equally witty remark, but was interrupted by the striking blonde that strode into the room behind him, and was stunned into immediate silence.

She was tall, almost as tall as Dyson, with a build both strong and feminine at once. She put her hands on her hips and cocked them, and corn-yellow hair shimmered in a wave around her face and slid over her shoulders; thick, soft tresses of molten gold. She stared through eyes that glittered coolly like emeralds – or maybe the deep, green waves of the ocean – at Bo, her gaze smoky, seductive, confident. 

“So _you’re_ the Bo I’ve heard so much about,” she offered in greeting. Her voice was sharp and quick, it cracked through the air like a whip and demanded a certain attention Bo was instantly jealous of.

Bo dropped her pillow to the floor. The grin on her face fell into a confused, suspicious frown and she stepped around Vex, he’d squirmed out of Dyson’s strong grip, to confront her visitor head-on. Energy crackled in an invisible, tense wave between the two girls, sharp and stinging, and Bo was fascinated, and a little intimidated, by the tall, beautiful, green-eyed girl that stood with all the confidence and poise of a warrior before her.

“Yeah, I am.” Bo took in the sight of her visitor, her fingers clenched at her sides with her discomfort, and she pressed her lips together, determined not to show even the slightest sign of weakness or submission in the face of her new competition. “Who the hell are you?”

 

 

* * *

 

  
  


 

_Tamsin had completely healed after their ordeal at O’Meara’s mansion the day before. Bo could clearly see that. She walked with no sign of pain or injury, held her back straight as though her ribs hadn’t been broken and her torso completely battered by Duncan’s heavy fist and spiked cast. There wasn’t a scratch or bruise that Bo could find on her flawless, porcelain skin. There was fire in her eyes, a rich, green flame that burned with the intensity that had both captivated and intimidated Bo the first time she’d met her._

_Bo couldn’t judge her for it. She didn’t know how Valkyries fed, didn’t know if her perfect health was the result of a feed like Bo’s, or simply something that came with being a Valkyrie. Bo couldn’t judge her for it because her own perfect health had come as a result of the sinful feed she’d made on her Thralls, right before Maia had cut their ties to her, right after she’d taken back herself, her conscience, from the darker Succubus that seemed to live, to bide its time, inside her._

_But Tamsin was hale, and healthy, and strong, and she stood between her and the door that would lead her to Dyson’s room at the Ash’s Compound, where Lauren was watching over the Wolf’s healing ankle._

_“Well look what the cat dragged in,” Tamsin drawled. Even when she drawled, her voice was sharp and quick. One eyebrow rose in an exaggerated arc, a smirk flashed across her features, and Bo had a sinking feeling in her gut that Tamsin was not in as helpful a mood today as she had been the day before._

_Bo strode purposefully straight up to Tamsin, as though she might barrel right into the Valkyrie if she didn’t step out of the way quickly enough, but stopped abruptly only inches away. Tamsin had one hand on her hip, the other dangled by her side, and she looked so strangely appropriate to the stark, glowing white hall, the naked walls and the pristine, Spartan atmosphere, that Bo herself felt somewhat out of place. “Does Lauren know you’re here?” the smirk on Tamsin’s face rang clear in her voice, and it crawled under Bo’s skin unpleasantly. “I bet she doesn’t,” the Valkyrie’s lips twitched upward, Bo struggled to contain a scowl at the way those words set her stomach churning with guilt. She had to grit her teeth to contain her growing irritation and impatience with the hard, cocky blonde that stood in her way._

_“What are you doing here, Tamsin?” Bo ground out. Her hands formed into fists on either side of her, she crossed her arms over her chest to force them to relax, but only succeeded in displaying her discomfort more clearly. “You’re Dark, and neck-deep in Light territory. Isn’t it against Fae law for you to even be here?”_

_Tamsin only shrugged nonchalantly and smiled down at Bo. “Dyson’s my partner. I get a pass for things like this.”_

_Bo pressed her lips together in response, silenced for the moment by the resentment, distrust and gratitude that struggled for dominance in her regard for Tamsin. Both women only stared at each other for a moment in the glowing white light of the hallway, one’s face a smug mask of indifference, the other’s a storm cloud of troubled irresolution. The silence stretched between them until both their expressions softened and faded into passivity._

_“How’s he healing?” Bo finally asked. She nodded her head toward the door that stood shut behind Tamsin, behind which there was no noise to interrupt the uncomfortable quiet of the corridor they stood in. When Tamsin’s sharp green eyes softened and the smirk on her lips twitched into a concerned frown, Bo felt herself relax immediately. Tamsin was neither cold, nor heartless – Bo had seen that in the way she’d knelt beside Maia and Seth on the rough, stony floor of O’Meara’s dungeon two days ago, the way she’d held Seth and brushed her fingers through the Seer’s hair and kissed the palm of her dirty, diseased hand. It was all a façade, an act, meant to deflect and protect the softer side of the Valkyrie that Bo had only caught glimpses of if she watched her carefully._

_“He’s Fae,” Tamsin shrugged again, and her hand fell from her hip to dangle expressionlessly at her side. “He’s walking. The Doc wants him to keep off it, but you know Dyson.”_

_Bo nodded, her brown eyes fastened on Tamsin’s thoughtfully, and dropped her own arms to her sides as well. “I do,” she murmured, fascinated by the way Tamsin averted her gaze uncomfortably from Bo’s intense stare._

_Uncomfortable silence stretched between them again, this time unfraught by aggression, only tense with the lack of anything they could possibly say. They were supposed to be enemies, but it was hard to remember why, with Dyson in common and how much Tamsin had done for her over the past two days. It mystified Bo that Tamsin would stand beside her, would fight for and with her, would risk her life for her, when Tamsin wanted Bo in chains and in the Dark’s custody so badly._

_Bo continued to stare at Tamsin, unconcerned with the heaviness of the silence, completely absorbed in her consideration of the woman standing before her. Tamsin’s eyes darted from the walls to the floor and back again, suddenly looking as out of place now as she had seemed in place earlier. Pity and sympathy stirred suddenly within Bo for Tamsin, unaccepted as she was by both Dark and Light. Bo had been told by Trick how Tamsin had defied Evony’s macabre desires and claimed Maia for her own, a decision that had put her in very dangerous territory where the selfish, petty Morrigan was concerned. But she was hated by the Light too, simply for having allied herself with the Dark._

_“How’s the short-stack?”_

_Tamsin’s voice startled Bo out of her reverie, she regarded Tamsin with a look of suspicion and interest, then sighed and dropped her own eyes to the floor._

_“Sleeping. Eating. Healing,” Bo paused and shrugged her discomfort and insecurity. She hadn’t spoken to Kenzi yet about what had happened over the past two days, and she was terrified that Kenzi might never forgive her for the way she’d abandoned and forgotten her._

_Tamsin must have picked up on Bo’s fears. Warm fingers brushed along Bo’s bare arm awkwardly, then settled over her shoulder, and when Bo glanced up into Tamsin’s face, she found a well of sympathy there she would never have expected from Tamsin. “She’ll forgive you,” Tamsin’s voice was soft, even wistful. There was such loneliness in the line of her mouth and the depth of her eyes, Bo found herself wondering when last Tamsin could claim to have had a true friend. Bo wondered for a moment if perhaps she’d misjudged the Valkyrie._

_But just as suddenly as Tamsin’s warmth appeared, it was gone. Green ice misted across the surface of her gaze and her fingers fell from Bo’s shoulder back to her hip. The smirk that never failed to get under Bo’s skin curled across Tamsin’s lips and the Valkyrie raised her chin aggressively at Bo once more. “Even if you are a murderer,” there was poison in Tamsin’s words, and an underlying layer of anger and resentment._ We’re not friends _, it reminded Bo,_ we’re enemies _._

 


	10. Chapter 10

“Why did you even invite her over?” Kenzi’s voice carried across the courtyard to where Bo and Lauren sat under a tree, enjoying their lunch. Two pairs of brown eyes flickered across the expanse of thick, green grass to the small group that meandered slowly toward them. Kenzi, empty-handed again, walked side by side with Dyson, and hand-in-hand with Nate. Hale walked distractedly on Dyson’s other side, busily texting on his phone. Everyone but Kenzi carried backpacks slung over their shoulders, and Nate dangled a small brown paper bag from the tips of his fingers carelessly.

“She’s new here, Kenz. I was asked to show her around. We have all the same classes,” Dyson’s voice was laced with exasperation, though his eyes sparkled with amusement. Bo could see them glint in the early afternoon sun from where they sat. It always cheered her to see how well two of her best friends could get along, especially since most of them couldn’t. And Dyson and Kenzi were very often at each other’s side, almost as much as they were at Bo’s, despite the age difference. “You can also thank Mister Class President here for that one,” Dyson elbowed Hale in the ribs, throwing the inattentive boy slightly off balance and drawing an indignant shout and a little attention from him, “he was the one who nominated me to play tour guide.”

Hale glared at Dyson. Bo could see the way he gripped his phone as they drew nearer, his knuckles were almost white with the intensity of it. Bo knew how much Dyson had missed hanging out with his own best friend, and she had a feeling Hale knew it too, but his new duties as Class President had gotten him little more than anger and resentment from the rest of their gang for the way he always seemed to ditch them for more important stuff. From the way he gripped his phone and shifted his stony glare from Dyson to Kenzi, Bo could see that this anger and resentment really bothered him.

“She’s new and she’s upper crust. She’s also Marquis’ new teacher’s pet, and it wouldn’t kill you to make a little peace with the principal every now and again, would it?” Even at a growl, Hale’s voice was melodic.

“Negatory!” Kenzi retorted, almost gloatingly, “She might have been Marquis’ pet a few weeks ago, but rumor mill has it,” Kenzi’s voice hushed to a loud whisper, and she swung her head from side to side in a theatrical show of checking that no one else was listening in, “she’s on Marquis’ shit list now.”

Dyson and Hale both scoffed at that. Hale’s phone didn’t even dip, and his dark brown eyes never left the glow of its screen.

“Whatevs!” Kenzi’s face flushed pink with annoyance. Now the little group had finally joined Bo and Lauren under their tree in the school’s courtyard, and Kenzi stopped inches away from Bo’s feet. Nate and Lauren exchanged silent, sympathetic glances – they always felt like outsiders among their band of friends – and shared long, exasperated sighs when Kenzi’s voice rose a notch with her frustration, “I know it’s true. I saw her in Marquis’ office on Monday, and that vein in the middle of Marquis’ head, the one that pops out whenever she gets pissed, looked like it was having babies!”

Bo couldn’t help but laugh. The image of their principal’s face flushed with anger, with that huge vein throbbing away in the middle of her forehead, was comical. Especially when that fierce, terrifying face wasn’t faced in her direction. Lauren and Nate rolled their eyes at each other, and Dyson snorted in amusement. Only Hale still seemed entirely defensive, and that seemed to goad Kenzi on even further.

“I could hear her shouting from the hallway,” Kenzi’s tone had softened, at least, but the matter-of-factness had not left her voice, and she still bristled visibly at Hale, still busily tapping away on his phone on Dyson’s other side. “And then it got super quiet. But I leaned against the door. I don’t think I’ve ever heard the word ‘expelled’ sound so threatening before.”

Hale finally raised his eyes to look at Kenzi. One eyebrow cocked at her, as if to say ‘and what’s your point?’

Kenzi’s jaw jutted forward stubbornly and her eyebrows knit together in annoyance and exasperation.

“She’s bad news, Hale! And you brought her straight to our doorstep!”

Hale threw his hands up in defeat, his own face flushed with his rising temper and he simply strode away without even an angrily shouted goodbye. Bo raised an eyebrow at Kenzi and her lips twitched into a small, sympathetic smile. 

“She’s not that bad, Kenzi,” Dyson grunted as he flopped to the ground beside Bo, “and why do you even care if Tamsin gets herself into trouble? Her expulsion would just get her out of your way.”

Kenzi sighed dramatically before dropping to the ground across from her best friend, and Bo had to tune out the rest of her argument with Dyson over the new girl, for the sake of her sanity. Tamsin had been more than just a pain in Bo’s ass ever since she’d shown up at Bo’s doorstep. She’d been almost a downright terror. But she was friends with Dyson, and she was tough, and there was something in Tamsin’s cool green eyes that somehow prevented Bo from really, truly hating her. 

So Bo only tossed the last half of her sandwich to Kenzi and curled into Lauren’s side. A warm, lingering kiss pressed to the side of Bo’s head, and with Lauren’s arm draped across her shoulders and the bright sun falling in dappled patches of warmth across her skin and glowing copper past her closed eyelids, Bo felt herself relax. Lauren’s voice was a soft murmur in her ear, Nate’s rough laughter a gentle accompaniment to her girlfriend’s dry, witty humor, and Kenzi’s loud, sharp arguments and Dyson’s deep, bass tones, despite the aggressiveness in the first and the tense defensiveness in the second, were comforting as well.

Tamsin could have been a million miles away now, or she could have been a hairs’ breadth away, for all Bo would have noticed. All there was for her was the soft grass under her, the rough, hard bark behind her, and the strong, affectionate arm that fluttered around her neck every time Lauren gestured when she spoke. 

And until the last five minutes of that sleepy forty-five, Bo dozed, blissful in the sun and in the arms of her new girlfriend, surrounded by the people she loved. But when she finally opened her eyes to gather her things around her and leave Lauren with a kiss that lingered sweetly on her lips before heading off to her next class, Bo found that in the spare few minutes before the bell rang that her world would turn on its axis, again.

Everyone split up to get to class. Bo strode by herself across the expanse of the emptying yard, past long wooden picnic tables and other students gathering their things to leave. She was the last to step through the doors into the dimly lit hallway, and as she turned to her right on her way to history, was pulled back sharply by a hard, powerful grip around her arm. Bo spun on her heel, startled and annoyed, to find Tamsin’s hard, chilling green eyes staring straight into her own. A frown pulled at the edges of Tamsin’s mouth, and her lips were pressed into a thin line. Her nails dug sharply into Bo’s skin. Bo yanked her arm out of Tamsin’s tight grip with a growl and massaged the little half-moon impressions Tamsin’s nails had left there.

“Tamsin, what the hell?!” Bo’s voice was sharp, and louder than it should have been, considering they were about to be late to class. Strangely, Tamsin’s glare vanished, and a cold, acerbic smile curled across her mouth.

“Let me ask you something, Bo,” Tamsin tilted her head, as if in curiosity, “how long have you and Lauren been an item?”

Tamsin’s question threw Bo completely off guard. She cocked her head back, and her brow furrowed in abstract confusion. “What?”

The smile on Tamsin’s face stretched into a cool, mean grin. The blonde took a step closer and raised her phone, clutched in her hand. The screen glowed with a picture, and Bo squinted at it to make it out.

“Does your precious girlfriend know about the kid you assaulted a few nights ago?” Tamsin’s voice was jarring now, harsh and crackling with intensity and threat. The picture on the screen suddenly drew clear, and Bo snatched the phone from Tamsin’s grasp to stare at it in horror. It was a picture, rendered in painfully sharp detail, of Bo pressing another scrawny boy against a wall. Her lips were forcefully pushed against his, and her fingers were digging tight into his jacket. The boy’s arms were thrown against the wall, as if he had been struggling to get away from her. He looked upset, sick and terrified, even in the low contrast of the image.

“No…” Bo rasped sharply, “I didn’t – “

“Didn’t hear him when he said no?” Tamsin’s voice rose with her anger. The snapping, measured footsteps of the school’s security guards rapped against the school’s stained tile floor, and Tamsin and Bo sidestepped back outside, under the shade of a tree and just out of line of sight of the security coming to inspect the noise. When the danger had passed, Tamsin snatched her phone back from Bo’s grasp and shoved her with enough force to send Bo sprawling to the grass. “He’s my classmate, Bo!” Though Tamsin’s voice had quieted, it was still sharp and ringing to Bo’s ears. Panic flooded Bo’s system, she barely remembered that night, she’d been so drunk off stolen liquor and high from the joint she and Kenzi had shared. But it was the night she and Lauren became a couple. Bo’s face paled, and she felt cold even in the warmth of the spring air around her.

“He’s not pressing charges,” Tamsin continued, her voice softer now, but the glint in her flashing green eyes was chilling and hard, “he’s too scared. Of you. But you know what I think?” Tamsin knelt to the grass as she talked, so that she could see Bo eye to eye, to convey and press upon her exactly what she thought.

Bo straightened on the grass, and glared defiantly back at Tamsin. She remembered this kid now, this all-knowing, stigmatizing son of a bitch who’d condemned her for who and what she was. He’d deserved every last minute of that searing kiss, and Bo believed that with every fiber of her being. His disgust might have been for Bo, but his fear was of the way he’d risen and stiffened against her.

“I think you can shove it,” Bo spat back angrily, and threw her weight against the blonde bearing down on her. They both tumbled to the grass, but Bo pulled herself up quickly to glare down at Tamsin furiously. 

That was all anyone had for her: judgment. They never knew the whole story, never cared to. Tamsin didn’t know Bo, didn’t know what she was born and how she was raised, didn’t know why she’d done what she’d done to be thrown out of her last school. She didn’t know the struggle she’d been through with her mom, didn’t know why they’d abandoned each other. But judging by the frigid awareness in her stare, she knew that it had happened. And that was the way it was with everybody. They only ever took one look at her and decided they knew enough to judge her, and Bo was sick to her stomach of it. She snarled at Tamsin, who scowled up at her furiously, and turned away. The door slammed against the wall of the school in its hurried attempt to get out of Bo’s way, and Bo stalked off down the hall to class and left Tamsin alone in the courtyard, glaring furiously back at her.

 

 

* * *

 

  
  


 

_It was late, and Bo was tired. She’d spent most of the day in training, preparing for her Dawning, and Bo’s shins throbbed and her body ached and her mind was numb with exhaustion. All she wanted was to go home and take the world’s longest nap…_

_A pair of soft, warm hands settled over her eyes. Bo recognized that touch and the sweet, faint scent of soap and honey immediately, and her tired expression broke into a smile so wide it threatened to split her face in half. Her heart beat excitedly in her chest._

_“If you are a cricket, I will totally kill you,” she joked, and the hands over her face slipped away with the warm breath that brushed the back of her neck. Bo spun around, her heart in her chest lighter than it had been all day, and dropped her jacket onto the stool beside her. Lauren grinned at her through tightly pressed lips, her eyes bright and wide with uncontained excitement. They’d spoken only minutes ago over the phone, but seeing Lauren now was infinitely better than waiting until later, for their planned dinner and movie._

_Lauren gave a muffled squeal of excitement that brought another light laugh to Bo’s lips, and bounced with anticipation._

_“I was on my way over when I called – I just – I couldn’t wait to see you,” Lauren was talking at a mile a minute, her light brown eyes glittered in the bar’s low light and her cheeks were flushed._

_“Aw, hon, me too,” it lightened Bo’s heart and brightened her day to see Lauren, always, “but I’m so tired.” Her limbs ached and felt heavy with the exhausting exercise Trick and Stella had put her through today. Lauren was still bouncing, she was absolutely twitchy with her delight._

_“How’d it go today? Did you kick ass? You look tired, are you a little tired?” Lauren’s face scrunched a little in her concern, but the excited gleam in her eyes never left. Bo took a step back, a little startled by Lauren’s zeal, and more than a little worried._

_“Are you on crack?” Bo had never seen Lauren like this, Lauren’s lips pressed together in that huge, thrilled grin she’d come in with and her eyes grew wide again with exhilaration. She rubbed her hands together, and Bo peered at Lauren, mystified by her happy restlessness, and reached out to try to still Lauren’s spiritedly twitching hands. “Seriously hon, have you been doing experiments without your respirator-thingy, because I –“_

_While Bo spoke, Lauren spun around for a piece of paper behind her and eagerly unfolded it before pulling it up in front of Bo’s face to read. “Look,” Lauren’s voice was quiet, but there was such eager anticipation in it that Bo only stared at her over the edge of the paper anxiously for a minute before taking it. It was a letter, and Bo frowned down at it for a moment longer before reading it out loud._

_“We congratulate you on being the recipient of the Moses-Gomburg Distinguished Award for Outstanding Contribution in the field of the – “_

_“The free radicals!” Lauren’s voice was tight with her excitement when she interrupted Bo. She brushed her hair away from her face and grinned again, a smile so wide Bo thought it might actually break Lauren’s face in half. She nodded excitedly, her hands clasped tightly in front of her, and beamed at Bo. It all went completely over Bo’s head, all she understood was that Lauren was being given an award; but that and Lauren’s obvious elation about it were all that really mattered. Bo glanced down again at the letter, damned if she would miss such an important event in her girlfriend’s life._

_“But the banquet is tonight!” Bo exclaimed, her stomach sunk a little with the realization she wouldn’t get the quiet evening she’d been hoping for._

_“I know,” Lauren breathed, her expression turned serious now, “I wasn’t their first choice, the award was originally going to Michael Shnood,” she said his name with such disdain, and her lip curled into a sneer that brought a grin to Bo’s face._

_“I take it his science is sucky?”_

_“He’s a total fraud,” Lauren agreed, her words racing again so fast they threatened to trip over one another, “he completely fudged his radical numbers, it’s all over the message boards!” And then Lauren bounced again and popped her lips and her whole face brightened with her excitement, and Bo was completely taken by her infectious exhilaration. “Oh, Bo, I knew they’d have to choose another recipient, but I didn’t think it would be me!”_

_It was adorable how excited Lauren had gotten herself. Bo had never seen her like this before. It warmed her from the inside out, and Bo grinned at her lover: at the shy, modest, crazy-smart, beautiful woman that bounced and twitched in front of her. How could a quiet night eating dinner and watching a movie possibly compare with seeing the sexiest scientist in the universe being celebrated? Lauren’s enthusiasm was beyond infectious, it brought a little energy and vitality to Bo’s tired body and such cheer to her tired spirit. They planned their evening quickly, and with Lauren still calling over her shoulder about dresses, and wearing them ‘together-like’ and a feverishly exclaimed ‘I love you’, Lauren left. Bo stood for a moment longer in the now empty Dal, a smile lingering still on her lips from the phrase that was so uniquely, eccentrically Lauren, and gathered her jacket._

_“Well, well, well, aren’t you two cute.”_

_The voice that cracked through the bar’s empty silence startled Bo, and she spun on her heel to face the green-eyed blonde that leaned against a support beam. Tamsin grinned at her, amused by her surprise, with her arms crossed over her chest and one ankle crossed over the other. She straightened a bit when Bo lowered her jacket again and stepped a little closer to her._

_Bo had never seen Tamsin dressed so nicely. It was a bit of a shock to her, Tamsin was almost always dressed for work, in slacks and sensible shoes that allowed her to move freely, and tank tops and jackets that allowed her to conceal small knives and throwing stars in straps across her torso. But today, she was in a shimmering black top, and an onyx pendant glittered darkly in the half-light of the bar. Black glass beads dangled from it down her chest. And she was in tight-fitting jeans and sleek low heels. Definitely not on-duty detective clothes. Bo threw her jacket on around her shoulders, untempted to stay any longer than she had to._

_“Who are you all sparkly for?” Bo was in no mood to play games, and the expression on Tamsin’s face looked snarky and bitchy and teasing – a mix of moods that already exhausted the elation of seeing Lauren so happy and excited._

_“I’m taking you out to lunch,” Tamsin responded as if this were obvious. Her hands fell to her hips, a classic Tamsin pose, and her lips curled again into that cocky grin that always crawled under Bo’s skin._

_Bo scoffed at the absurdity of Tamsin’s statement and shrugged deeper into her jacket._

_“And why would you want to do that?” Bo doubted Tamsin could give an argument compelling enough to tear her away from the short nap she still planned to take before Lauren’s banquet. But she had to admit, she was curious to hear it._

_Tamsin’s grin faded for an instant, her chin dipped and her hands fell from her hips. Anxiety flashed through Bo as she watched Tamsin’s good humor melt away into the shadows that played under the tables and chairs scattered around them._

_“Because everyone’s been lying to you.”_


	11. Chapter 11

The sun had long set, shadows flickered where candles were lit and light glowed steadily where lamps stood on tables or hung from the ceilings. Bo wrestled with her geometry homework, tired and irritated by it already, though she’d only gotten through the first three problems on a long, double-sided sheet of them. Math would be the end of her, she thought, if Kenzi didn’t finish her off first.

Kenzi nibbled on another cookie, her shoulder pressed against Bo’s and her long black hair brushing over the homework Bo was trying so hard to get done. Cookie crumbs scattered across the table and under Bo’s pencil, leaving grease-stains everywhere if Bo wasn’t quick enough to brush them away. And Kenzi had been nattering on for ages now about the newest styles in fashion, the ‘mean girls’ in her class and her conviction that the mystery meat served at lunch on Tuesdays was actually just tofu, boiled in pig fat.

“I mean, come on, it’s not even the right texture,” Kenzi’s voice was a sharp whine in Bo’s ear, and she tried again to shrug it off and focus on the equation she needed to find the length of the hypotenuse on this stupid, ugly triangle. “It tastes like pork, but it’s way too squishy, even for processed meat…”

The clock ticked loudly in time with Kenzi’s voice, a reminder that it was already past ten o’clock at night, well past time Kenzi went home, and Bo still had her English assignment to read and analyze. Bo was usually late on assignments, and sometimes, she never did them at all. But she’d promised her Gramps that this quarter, it would be different, and she would get back on the honor roll. Even if it killed her.

And at this rate, it probably would.

“Kenzi, it’s getting late,” Bo interrupted through clenched teeth. Her shoulders were still hunched over her binder and textbook, and her pencil tapped impatiently over her dirty sheet of paper, stained with eraser marks and smeared lead and cookie crumbs. She tilted her head to glare at her best friend, who raised her eyebrows back at her.

“So?” Kenzi’s mouth was full of cookie when she spoke, and Bo and her homework were once again battered by the cookie crumbs that flew from Kenzi’s mouth straight at them.

“God, say it, don’t spray it!” Bo’s voice was growing sharper and sharper with her impatience. She tossed her pencil away from her, frustration and anxiety rising in a wave through her belly to her chest, and she angrily swiped away the crumbs that had landed on her face and stuck there. 

“Well, aren’t you gonna at least walk me home?” 

At least Kenzi had swallowed her mouthful before asking. The petite adolescent dropped the rest of her cookie on the kitchen island and rose with Bo. The stools they sat on scraped irritatingly against the tile flooring, and Kenzi’s impossibly high stilettos snapped against the floor when she followed Bo out of the kitchen and down the narrow hallway that led to the front door. Bo grabbed Kenzi’s jacket from the hook, and with her face a stormy mask of annoyance and frustration, shoved it at her.

“I have homework to finish, Kenz. I love you, but you have to go,” Bo had at least finally managed to control the tone of her voice. It was no longer sharp and cutting, but it was still a little cold. Kenzi’s expression turned first frightened, then beseeching, and she didn’t pull her jacket on around her.

“But Bo, those girls at school, I told you –“

“You’ll be fine, Kenzi,” Bo sighed, exasperated and at the end of her rope, “they didn’t follow you here, they won’t follow you home. You’re a big girl, you can handle a couple of bullies.”

Kenzi only stood and stared at Bo for a moment. Her pale, periwinkle eyes bored through Bo with an expression of mixed hurt and betrayal, and Bo almost regretted her earlier harshness. But Bo had faith in Kenzi, she was a tough kid and could handle herself. Right now, Bo needed to handle her homework. And Gramps wasn’t around tonight to babysit, or to take Kenzi home; he had work to do too, at the pub he’d worked so hard to get open.

Mischief flashed in Kenzi’s eyes. She straightened a little, her shoulders stiffened and her fingers tightened around her jacket.

“I’ll help you with your homework,” she offered, and stood her ground.

Bo almost laughed. Even if Kenzi really could help her with her homework – the subject matter for which she wouldn’t learn for another year – she’d most likely get sidetracked within a minute of just reading it and start talking again about boys and shoes and how everyone at school was so jealous over the jacket she’d just ‘acquired’. So Bo only crossed her arms over her chest and raised one eyebrow skeptically at her best friend.

“No, you won’t.” Bo’s voice was decisive. She’d already made up her mind, and her mind was already on the mountain of homework she still had to get done, and it was already almost ten thirty. That stupid clock in the hall just kept ticking those far-too-short minutes away.

“But Bo, I keep trying to tell you – “

“You’ve been telling me, Kenzi,” Bo almost growled out her frustration this time. Her hands fell on Kenzi’s shoulders and she bodily moved Kenzi closer to the front door. Its paint was beginning to peel, and Gramps had been going on for weeks now about how Bo should help out around the house and repaint it for him one of those weekends. “You’ve walked home alone before, you can do it again. You’ll be fine, okay?”

Kenzi stared back at her doubtfully, but knew she wasn’t going to get any help out of Bo that night. Bo hated the insecurity and anxiety that frayed the edges of Kenzi’s face and paled her cheeks just a little. But Kenzi finally drew her fancy new black leather jacket on around her shoulders and shrugged well into it. It was finally spring, but it was definitely still cold out, especially at night. Kenzi’s hand was cold when it settled over one of Bo’s on the doorknob, and a sharp edge of worry speared through Bo for an instant before she remembered the thirty problems left of her geometry homework and the three chapters she hadn’t yet read in “The Scarlet Letter” and shoved that worry away. Kenzi would get home just fine, and Bo would finish her homework once she’d gone, even if it took her all night.

“Okay,” Kenzi said uncertainly, and twisted the doorknob. The door opened with a long, laborious creak and cold air rushed in to replace the warmth of Bo’s run-down little home. Bo watched her best friend carefully zip up her jacket, the zipper flashed cheerfully in the dim lamplight of the hallway, and the petite, ballerina girl shuffled across the threshold. Yellow lamplight mingled with clear, crisp, white moonlight on the smooth lines of Kenzi’s new jacket, and made the black material glow a little. The shiny buttons on its front pockets glinted, the little skulls etched into them grinned eerily at Bo, but Bo only stared at Kenzi’s dismayed face across the threshold of her home.

“I’ll see you tomorrow then,” Bo prompted. It was cold, standing in the doorway. She shivered against it, and watched while Kenzi gave her a tight smile and slowly turned away. Bo heard a mutter in response, but Kenzi’s words were so softly spoken, she couldn’t make them out. Kenzi’s heeled boots snapped on the pavement. Bo didn’t wait for Kenzi to disappear into the deep, cold shadows of night before pulling the door shut and turning back to the math and English homework that had put her in such a foul mood all day to begin with.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

_Tamsin had taken Bo out to a Dark bar for lunch. Aside from it being literally a bit darker than the other Light Fae bars Bo had frequented over the last couple of years, it really was no different from any other bar Bo had ever been in. And it was certainly lighter than the dance club Vex had owned, once upon a time._

_Bo didn’t really know what she’d expected from a Dark Fae bar. Maybe peanut shells on the floor and smoke in the air, or more fist-fighting and brawls next to the bar area, shattered glass on every surface, and bigger, burlier men and cruel-faced women. There was certainly an air of bad attitude, and the looks that Bo got from almost every patron was scathing, condescending, or downright hateful. But Bo wasn’t here for the other patrons, and didn’t care if they wore those glares until wrinkles scarred their faces and their expressions were frozen into masks of anger and hatred. She was here because Tamsin had looked at her with such frank concern at the Dal and told her that everyone she knew, everyone she loved and trusted to tell her the truth, had been lying to her._

_And the Dawning was close, Bo could feel it marching like ants under skin, and it made her itchy, and anxious._

_When Tamsin finally settled into the seat opposite hers, two cold bloody Caesars in hand, and passed one over to her, Bo offered her a questioning stare in return and leaned back into her own chair. Tamsin was already sipping at her drink and made no move to explain herself._

_“What am I doing here?” Bo’s voice was sharp with her impatience. She’d already suffered through a long, grueling day, and she was missing her enormous king-sized bed and the blonde she wished she could wrap her arms around. She wanted to get this over with, quickly._

_Tamsin sighed. It was deep, and long, and heavy, and it set Bo on edge. Carefully, Tamsin put her drink down on the wooden table between them, her fingers lingered on the stalk of celery that rose from the edge, and finally looked Bo straight in the eye. The expression she conveyed sent a shiver of anxiety down Bo’s spine and made the Succubus sit up straighter._

_“There’s a good chance you won’t make it through the Dawning,” Tamsin’s voice didn’t hold its usual dark, witty sarcasm. It was naked in its honesty, and Bo felt herself tense with the worry that gnawed at her, prompted by Tamsin’s frankness and undecorated words._

_“That’s not what Trick said,” Bo retorted, “or Hale. Or Dyson.”_

_Dammit, they wouldn’t lie to her! Not about this, not about something as important, as life or death, as Bo’s Dawning. Would they?_

_Tamsin leaned forward, her voice took a turn for the aggressive and a scowl flowered across her face._

_“I have listened to them bullshit you all week,” her anger was clearly evident in her voice, “the Dawning –,“ Tamsin hesitated. The anger that had knit her brows and tightened the lines around her mouth softened, and Bo thought she looked almost frightened. Tamsin’s lips pressed together, and those faded green eyes, bright in the dim light of the bar, flashed with an expression that Bo could not read. “The Dawning is the most brutal thing you will ever go through, times infinity.”_

_“Are you trying to throw me off my game?” Resentment, sharpened by the bitter pangs of fear Bo could not suppress whenever anyone mentioned the Dawning, bloomed through Bo’s chest, hot and burning, “Because this is my life we’re talking about here!”_

_Tamsin only stared at her for a long moment, her gaze intense and unwavering. It was unsettling, and Bo couldn’t decide now who to believe: the Valkyrie that had tried to sabotage and ruin her ever since they’d met until only a few weeks ago, or the family she’d found, who loved her, who’d saved her time and again from others and from herself._

_Finally, when Tamsin spoke, her words were softer and calmer, “I’m trying to help you.”_

_And then Bo understood the expression she’d seen flashing across Tamsin’s face only seconds ago. Rarely had Tamsin ever been unguarded around her. She’d always been on top of her game, always held her cards close. She was sharp, and witty, and scathing in her remarks and accusations, and she only ever had insults and indictments to offer, especially where Bo was concerned._

_But ever since Bo had faced down O’Meara a little more than a week ago, Tamsin had seemed different. From the moment she’d helped her find Lauren deep in the Fomor’s dungeon, up until the next day, when she’d broken into his mansion to break her and Lauren out, Bo had only ever seen Tamsin’s hard, cold exterior. And she’d thought that there was nothing more to Tamsin than exactly that. But the way Tamsin had knelt by Seth’s side, had kissed and comforted her, the way Tamsin had defied the woman she’d sworn her fealty to in order to protect a lost, frightened girl… Bo had begun to learn to see Tamsin in a different light._

_The expression Bo had seen tear across Tamsin’s face in the grainy, flickering light of the bar had been one of unguarded worry._

_“Why?” Bo’s voice was sharp and suspicious. Perhaps Tamsin did have a gentler side to her. Perhaps Tamsin was capable of caring about someone, even loving them. But why on earth would the battle-hardened Valkyrie feel anything like that toward her, when they’d been nothing but enemies since the day they met?_

_Frustration ripped Tamsin away from the table she leaned on. She leaned back in her chair and scowled heavily at Bo, and her eyes danced on every surface in the bar except Bo’s face. “Why what?” she snapped, and her hands slapped onto her thighs before Tamsin finally looked Bo in the eye again._

_And Bo could see there the insecurity that Tamsin struggled so hard to hide._

_“Why do you care?” Bo’s voice was soft now. The rough sounds of people laughing, of silverware snapping against plates, of loud metal music thrashing through the thick air and intense ambient conversation almost drowned out her words, but Bo knew that Tamsin had heard her. Her green eyes fell for a moment before meeting Bo’s again, and Tamsin’s lips were pressed so tightly together they were a thin line of white against her pale face._

_Bo almost thought that Tamsin would respond with indignant indifference, or a hotly-spoken denial. Perhaps the Valkyrie would just up and leave, give up on this strange, strained heart-to-heart the conversation, or argument, had turned to. But Tamsin stood her ground, sat solidly, tensely, in her seat and leaned forward again. Her arms crossed over each other on the table, they pushed away the bloody Caesar she’d forgotten in the thick of their messy squabble, and cool, faded green eyes, saturated with frustrated worry, held Bo’s own._

_“Because it’s not right,” Tamsin’s words were quietly spoken, but Bo could feel the edge of steel that underlay them. “Because everyone should stand a chance against their own Dawning, and their placatory bullshit is sabotaging you.”_

_“Is that why you helped us two weeks ago, when I was bat-shit crazy and Kenzi was lost and Lauren was kidnapped?” Bo’s words were sharper than she’d intended, but her heart was pounding in her chest with the realization that Tamsin wasn’t the hard, arrogant bitch Bo had made her out to be. The expression of anger and resentment that had pulled her mouth into a frown and knit her eyebrows together softened, though, into one of interest and consideration._

_Tamsin’s lips pressed together again, momentarily, before she breathed out another heavy sigh._

_“Because it was right?” Bo pressed on when Tamsin didn’t respond, and her tone was softer than it had been. She leaned in closer to Tamsin, trying to hold the eye-contact Tamsin looked like she wanted to break, and to hold on to this odd truce that seemed to have sprung up between them out of nowhere._

_“Because he was wrong,” Tamsin finally answered. She licked her lips and leaned back a little, though now her shoulders were hunched with resignation and she looked tired and old._

_Maybe Bo had been wrong too, all along, about Tamsin. Bo considered the woman sitting hunched in front of her, and really thought about everything she thought she knew about her: the tall, tough, vindictive detective, who’d allied herself with the Dark and worked alongside the Light – even if it was a peace-project cooked up by the Elders to promote goodwill and amity between the two sides. She’d been dogged in her investigation into the Fae that Bo had drained almost dry right outside the Dal – so long ago now Bo felt it had been years since it happened. She’d pursued Bo like a dog after a bone, had been itching to get Bo into the custody of the Dark, and for what?_

_For justice. She’d gone against the Morrigan’s orders to leave Seth’s investigation alone for the same reason. Had claimed Maia, a human, against her own nature, for the same reason. She’d even come to Bo’s side, had risked her life to get Lauren and Kenzi out of that horrible place, to get Bo away from that horrible man, for the same reason. For justice._

_Maybe Tamsin’s song and dance hadn’t been about getting Bo killed. Maybe it had been about getting justice for the man that Bo had almost killed. And maybe Tamsin’s sudden change of heart, and her concern over Bo and Bo’s Dawning was true._

_And that meant that the Dawning really was some terrible, terrifying experience that Bo might not get through in one piece. And Tamsin really wasn’t the black-hearted enemy Bo had chalked her up to be._

 


	12. Chapter 12

The sun outside was a waterfall of molten gold through white cotton-candy clouds. A breeze drifted through the trees, and Bo could almost hear it whisper through the leaves, a soft, peaceful sigh that bespoke the world’s content. It was warm out today, the weather was perfect. The first beautiful day of spring. And Bo should have been outside, enjoying it with her friends, and with Lauren. 

Instead, she was stuck on the second floor of her school, behind windows that cut her off from the gentle breeze that swayed through the trees, out of the warm shower of sunlight that shafted through those perfect fluffy clouds, stuck in the mind-numbing, silent purgatory that was after-school detention. And worse: she was stuck with Tamsin.

Bo had to force her longing gaze away from the windows beside her, it was too depressing staring outside at the perfect weather she was not allowed to enjoy. Her stare fell instead on the blonde that sat at the desk beside hers, long agile fingers fiddling with a pencil that scratched short, arbitrary marks onto the lined paper beneath it.

It hadn’t been Tamsin’s fault that she was imprisoned in school on a gorgeous Friday afternoon on the first official day of spring. Truth be told, she owed Tamsin her gratitude: something Bo had never thought she would feel toward the arrogant, self-entitled senior. And it had actually kind of been Bo’s own fault that Tamsin had wound up in detention with her, though Bo had really had no choice and Tamsin really could have just walked away.

Bo’s brows knit together and her lips pressed into a tight frown as she considered the girl sitting idly beside her. She hadn’t liked Tamsin from the moment they’d met: had decided in her eternal wisdom and experience that Tamsin had had no more sides to her than a simple straight line. She had been cocky, rude and aggressive, petty, and downright nasty from the moment she’d stepped through Bo’s bedroom doorway weeks ago until only a couple of hours ago, and Bo had thought she’d known everything there was to know about the older, snarky bad-ass.

But maybe Dyson was right. Maybe there was something more to her. Tamsin seemed to sense Bo’s eyes burning holes into her temple and jerked to the side. Their eyes met, bright, electric green to dark, velvety brown, and the pair stared at each other in mixed distaste and fascination.

“What?” Tamsin whispered fiercely, uncomfortable with the way Bo kept staring at her.

Bo only shrugged in reply and averted her gaze. Her fingers played idly together on top of her desk, pale and plain, long and nimble. Her hair fell in a curtain around her face, shielding her from the intense, considering glare Tamsin raked her with.

Until only a couple of hours ago, Bo would have agreed with everything that Kenzi had said at lunchtime almost two weeks ago about Tamsin: that she was bitchy and mean and self-involved. But now, Bo only wondered if it was all just a front for the loneliness of moving to a place where she didn’t know anyone, if it was just a façade to hide her insecurities and mask a deep hidden scar left behind by all the people in her life that had hurt her. And Tamsin could have convinced that boy to tell someone about how Bo had attacked him, and, Bo could admit it to herself now, should have. Maybe she couldn’t, but the picture on Tamsin’s phone didn’t make its way into other hands, and for that, Bo was bewildered, and grateful.

The teacher that presided over them cleared his throat loudly, and his chair scraped against the stained linoleum flooring when he stood. Bo glanced up to see him glare over his half-moon spectacles at them both, the top of his balding head glowed in the flickering fluorescent classroom lights and his fingertips pressed to the notched, scratched surface of his desk. He was short and pudgy, with mustard stains dotted over his pilled checkered sweater, and his wrinkled tan slacks were at least a couple sizes too big. Bo thought he taught one of the history classes, maybe on the freshman level, but he was not terribly familiar to her, and she couldn’t recall his name.

He cleared his throat again, softer this time, and straightened himself. His hands folded over his belly, and his voice sounded nasally and unexpectedly shrill for such a robust, stocky frame.

“I’ll be back in a few moments. I expect you young ladies to conduct yourselves with decorum in my absence. And for you to still be present upon my return,” his voice sounded louder than it should have been in the quiet stillness of the nearly empty classroom, and Bo ignored him when he shuffled away from his desk and squeezed tightly through the door, as though afraid they might leap after him and escape through it as he exited. Honestly, she had far more important things to worry about than his approval. Tamsin only waited for the door to click shut quietly before she leaned back dangerously in her chair so that it balanced on two skinny legs and threw her own feet over the slanted surface of her table.

“How’re those busted ribs feeling, Succu-lette?” Though Tamsin’s voice was soft, it carried clearly to Bo’s ears, and they sounded razor-sharp with sarcasm and fake concern. Bo turned her glare from her half-entwined fingers to the golden-haired kid sprawled beside her and shrugged. She’d been lucky, she supposed – the fight had left her with no lasting injuries, and though that last brutal punch to her gut had left her gasping for breath, the only pounding, scalding pain she felt was the one that flashed across her raw knuckles. Tamsin looked far worse for wear, she’d refused to bandage her own bleeding fists and the far side of her lip from Bo was swollen and purple.

“Fine,” Bo answered grudgingly. “More worried about Kenzi right now than myself, actually.”

It hadn’t been a fair fight. Not by a long shot. The girl they had gotten into a tussle with had been backed by four other friends, all tall and broad shouldered, all scruffy, hard-skinned trailer trash kids that had been just itching for a fight. But the red-headed kingpin had liked Kenzi’s hard-bought leather jacket, and Kenzi was smaller than most of the kids in her class. She was as tough as nails, but those girls had been twice her size and had outnumbered her five to one. Bo wasn’t about to let the beating they let loose on her best friend go unpunished. So she went after them, even if that meant that she went in on odds that were five to one too.

Except, with Tamsin’s unexpected support, they’d risen to five to two.

“How’s your lip?” Bo looked back up to Tamsin and found her sparkling emerald eyes fastened thoughtfully on her own. Tamsin gave it a moment’s consideration, then shrugged. One hand rose unconsciously to her bruised mouth, pressed gingerly against swollen flesh, and she winced from the pain Bo could imagine spearing across her face.

“Tickles,” Tamsin shrugged again and dropped her hands across her waist. They both only looked at each other for a long, tense minute. Then Bo sighed heavily and scrubbed her hands over the rough, pitted surface of her desk.

“Thanks for having my back,” Bo mumbled, quietly enough she thought Tamsin might not have heard. Truthfully, Bo wouldn’t have guessed in a million years that Tamsin would have risked her health in a fight for Bo’s defense. But Tamsin hadn’t seemed to give it even a second’s thought before jumping into the fray. Tamsin’s jacket whispered with the shrug the blonde gave in reply. 

“I shouldn’t have let Kenzi walk home alone last night,” Bo growled softly, “this is all my fault. I am a terrible friend.”

“Are you kidding me?” Tamsin leaned back further in her chair, it creaked its disapproval at her and tipped dangerously backward so that Tamsin had to drop her feet and grab her desk to keep upright, “my friends wouldn’t even fight one bully if she’d beaten me up over a quarter.”

Bo’s mouth twitched, her eyes rose to meet Tamsin’s again disbelievingly.

“Then you need new ones,” her voice came out harsher than she’d intended, and Bo instantly regretted her biting tone and the hurt expression that flitted across Tamsin’s face almost too quickly to see. But Bo’s bitterness and anger weren’t directed at Tamsin, and she couldn’t help the rage and anxiety that rose and twisted in a tightening spiral in her chest. The chair tipped backward again and Tamsin had to grapple the table in front of her to keep from crashing head-first into the table behind her. It shattered their eye-contact, and Bo wondered absently if Tamsin had dipped it too far back to balance on purpose, simply for an urgent reason to break it. The last two legs of her chair tapped loudly as they fell to the floor, and Tamsin’s feet thudded down between them. When Tamsin spoke again, her voice was soft, more sigh than speak, and muttered so that Bo thought perhaps Tamsin wasn’t speaking to her at all, but to herself, under her breath, “what’s so great about Kenzi anyway?”

Bo considered answering at all. Her gaze fell to her fingers again, and she turned her hands knuckles-up to inspect the angry, raw skin across the top, red and bruising with the close-fisted punches she’d inflicted on the bullies that had dared to hurt her best friend. 

“She’s uh…” Bo started uncertainly, still unsure of Tamsin’s interest in an answer, “she’s Kenzi.” Bo grinned despite herself as images of the petite, lithe girl flashed across her mind’s eye, spunky and grinning wickedly back at her. When Bo turned her gaze back up to meet Tamsin’s, the blonde’s face was scrunched up in dismissal and skepticism, and Bo felt the sudden urge to really answer Tamsin’s question.

“She’s smart,” Bo continued, her voice gaining conviction, and Tamsin’s expression softened into one of wondering curiosity, lined around her eyes and across her brow with the slightest suggestion of wistfulness, “and honest, and kind. And she makes me feel normal,” Bo had Tamsin’s full, undivided attention now, and the expression that lit Tamsin’s bright green eyes seemed almost sad, “and special, all at the same time.”

“Oh,” Tamsin dropped her gaze. Her arms crossed over her desk and Bo thought she never looked so small and alone to her before.

“She is my sister, Tamsin,” Bo’s voice rose, now with the angry guilt and self-disgust that swirled in a ripping, furious storm in her chest at the memory of Kenzi’s bruised and torn face when she’d finally caught up with her at her locker that morning, “and those girls have been after her for weeks now and I wouldn’t even walk home with her!” Bo’s voice broke at the end, choked with angry tears Bo refused to shed. Tears wouldn’t heal Kenzi’s black eye and busted lip, or the shoulder those bullies had dislocated when they’d torn Kenzi’s jacket forcefully off her back.

“Silence!” The teacher that had abandoned them momentarily burst through the doorway, his steps hastened from the panicked, angry shout Bo’s voice had risen to. He glared furiously at Bo, his colorless gray eyes sharp as daggers and his pouting lips drawn down in a scowl and his brow furrowed in anger at Bo’s emotional outburst. He slammed the door shut behind him, and the sound of it startled both Bo and Tamsin into complete and utter silence. The chubby gray-haired man glowered at them a moment longer before stalking indignantly back to his desk and collapsing petulantly into his chair, and by then, he’d lost the attention of both girls completely.

Both girls looked at each other for a long time after that, both sorrowful, one with an edge of self-disgust and self-hatred, the other with a hint of wistfulness and an aching loneliness that seeped almost desperately through misty depths of green.

* * *

 

**Inertia held her. Frozen breath weighed in her lungs, heavy and sharp, and Bo felt like a thousand shattered shards of ice scattered across bleak, craggy rock. Tamsin should have taken her, should have turned her in, so that Bo could suffer the consequences of her selfish, inhuman actions. Had Tamsin understood that something was wrong with Bo? That her Dawning had awoken a monster in her that Bo was struggling to control? It wasn’t an excuse, Bo knew it now, though she didn’t have the courage to admit her failings out loud. But Tamsin had tabled that investigation when Bo’s impending devolution reared its ugly head. Tamsin should have turned her in, to be executed by the Dark. Should have, but didn’t – and in that small act of not doing, of temporary mercy, had been better, had been more human, than Bo had proclaimed to be.**

**Everything she thought she knew, everything she thought she was, was undone. And Bo was a mist across a black, freezing surface, insubstantial and only so much gathered air. Bo didn’t know which Tamsin was real, but it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter because both had done what Bo, in any of these mangled memories and wicked fantasies, had failed to do: protect the people she loved and stand by the values she claimed to have. And Tamsin had gone a step further in both, by protecting someone who’d hated her and standing by values no one believed she’d possessed.**

**For a Succubus, Bo sucked at reading people. It was a vague flutter of a memory that told her so, in the voice of a Valkyrie Bo had never trusted and never liked. What did that say about Bo, she wondered? Who was this Succubus, this woman, who would make such general assumptions based on brief glimpses and alliances she claimed not to care about? Who was this person that claimed to have such virtue and loyalty, but abandoned both for the sake of her own pride and comfort?**

**She’d abandoned Kenzi, had ignored her, had betrayed Lauren and attacked a boy (man?) without remorse. Bo couldn’t be proud of that, she couldn’t live with that. And the cold that whined and crept around her, that snuck into every crevice of her heart and mind and hooked its frozen fingers into her and whispered soothing, empty nothings to her promised an end to it. If Tamsin wouldn’t end her, then this cold, this emptiness, would. If Bo would allow it to.**

**And the Valkyrie that Bo had once doubted, even hated, had become a friend that Bo loved and trusted. She knew her friends had loved her in each scenario she struggled with, but Tamsin had been the only one bold and brave, strong and honest enough, to face and challenge her. Tamsin had been Bo’s toughest critic, but when shit got real, she was the one that had Bo’s back. The frozen wasteland around Bo deepened and shivered, merged with the emptiness that yawned inside her. She’d misjudged Tamsin, deeply.**

**But that mistake was not irreversible. Bo struggled against the numbing, desperate darkness that clung to her like an ooze to find some hope in any reality in which she might truly exist. She thought none of it seemed real, but all of it must be. Or was it all an illusion that simply seemed real?**

**She could still fix it. She could still repair the damage done, vindicate all of her injustices. Perhaps. Maybe. But the cold froze her fingers, numbed her heart and mind, and all Bo wanted to do was clutch at whatever shreds of warmth her visions and memories conjured and lose herself to them. And the cold promised such repose, such finality to the bleakness that surrounded and ate at her.**

**It would be so much easier to simply not care…**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you all had a lovely Christmas. Happy New Year!


	13. Chapter 13

Another city. Another job bartending a nameless pub, serving faceless people. The years had run together now, she’d been doing this for so long. She couldn’t recall how many years it had been since she’d left home, it had become something she had to really think about.

At first, it had been simply instinct. She didn’t know what she was doing, or how she was doing it, all she knew was that she let herself go until she got so hungry she couldn’t think straight, and then she’d let the monster take over, she’d hunt, and she’d wake up in another bed with another nameless lover. And they’d be stone dead.

Somewhere along the way, she’d learned how to recognize the pangs of hunger. She resigned herself to the fact that she could not fight her own nature. She could not starve the beast that lurked in her soul. There was no way out of the lifestyle she lived: crashing in abandoned, derelict houses, in condemned buildings, skipping from job to job, bed to bed, dead lover to dead lover. But her lovers didn’t have to be innocents. If she had to kill, she could at least choose who died, and she chose the darkest hearts and souls she could find: rapists, thieves, and murderers. She wandered to the seediest parts of town to find them. 

She was a bottom-feeder, a cannibal. She fed on those lost, black souls that were just like hers. And finally, she allowed herself to enjoy it.

Bo couldn’t remember which city this was. She couldn’t remember if she’d been here before. Everywhere she went looked the same to her now. She wiped down the bar’s surface with a rag, rubbing the smooth waxed finish with sharp, quick strokes until the wood beneath glowed in the bar’s dim light. People milled, talked and drank, and the sounds of their activity was an incessant buzz that hummed in Bo’s sensitive hearing. A game was on the TV screen perched over her right shoulder, it flashed in the mirror across the pub from her in bright, staccato bursts of light and color, but Bo paid it no mind.

The strong, heady smells of liquor permeated the air. The rich, wheaty scent of beer remained the most pervasive, a sweet overtone to the subtler aromas of whiskey, vodka and gin. Every so often, a patron dropped by the bar to request another drink, and Bo could smell the alcohol on their breath too. It was acrid and rancid when it mixed with the bitter scent of cigarettes and the pretzels that were served complimentarily at every table in the bar.

“Can I get a glass of white wine? House is fine,” the low tenor of a female voice caught Bo’s attention. She smiled politely as she moved behind the bar to fill the order and caught her breath upon meeting the tawny gaze of the tall blonde who’d made it. Bo’s smile spread a little before completely vanishing, she tensed with the excitement that blossomed low in her gut and made her heart beat heavily in her ears. She poured the chilled wine carefully, as though afraid to spill a single drop. “Also whatever dark beer you have on tap. For my friend,” her voice was low, sweet, almost musical, and it made Bo want to lean in to catch every inflection, every sound of every vowel and consonant. Bo looked up again, her sight flickering from the gorgeous blonde that spoke to the dark-skinned brunette that edged onto the stool beside her. They were both absolutely stunning. A shiver of arousal slid down Bo’s spine, and she knew, though she had hunted and fed her fill only the night before, that she would have to hunt and feed again tonight, if only to calm the sudden hunger that bloomed warm and intoxicating throughout her.

“Guinness sound okay to you?” Bo couldn’t help herself, she leaned across the bar flirtatiously, her grin was teasing and coy, and it brought an immediate smile from both women. A blush crept up the blonde’s long neck, and Bo felt the insane urge to trail her lips along it. The brunette’s voice was soft when she agreed, and the shy expression in her hazel eyes sent a rush of warmth running through Bo’s entire body.

Not for the first time, Bo’s resolve to maintain her slim hold on morality wavered. She was tired of the low-lifes she fed on, of the corrupt, tainted flavor their sexual energy was always infused with. She ached to taste the sweeter, cleaner flavors of the innocent and virtuous. But if she lost what tenuous hold she had on her conscience, Bo feared she would lose everything. Her hunger gnawed at her like a dog at a bone, and Bo knew that if she hoped to maintain even a semblance of self-control, she needed to hunt and feed. Tonight.

Bo scanned the crowd in the dim, smoky light of the pub, her eyes never settling on one single person and avoiding the hazel and tawny eyes that first searched hers curiously, then stared deep into each other’s lovingly while they spoke. Instead, her gaze drifted sporadically over men and women as they mingled and talked and watched the hockey game with an interest that ranged from mild to severe. Not one of them struck her as special. Not one seemed outcast, seemed too comfortable or too uncomfortable. Not a single one scanned the crowd in the same predatory manner in which she did, herself.

They were all very ordinary, very law-abiding folk.

That was okay. Bo was skilled at finding the rougher parts of town. When her shift that night ended, she would go for a walk. At the end of it, she would find her prey, and hidden within the safe, dark confines of a deeply shadowed alleyway, she would strike, and she would feed.

It had become a point of fascination to Bo how many different guises in which sin and evil would hide. Her only hard and fast rule was that the people she preyed on were those who had preyed on others. Her only exception to that rule was children.

And sometimes, Bo would wonder if there was another like her who would one day feast on her.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_There was no such thing as complete and utter silence. At least, Bo thought, until you were dead. The air around her was static. No mice or bugs scurried around underfoot in the furthest recesses of the study. There was no whisper of cloth or hair moving carefully around her. Even the clocks had been silenced, muffled under layer upon layer of thick, velvety cloth and tucked away in drawers made of rich, dense wood._

_Everything around her was still._

_Everything inside of her, however, seemed to rage._

_She could hear her own breath, even as she tried to control its flow through her lungs. The harder she tried to control it, the louder her heart beat in her ears, and the stronger the pulse that thudded, heavy and thick, through her veins. She could hear Trick breathe too, though his breaths were far slower and more controlled than hers. Light glowed past her eyelids, and slowly, she opened them._

_She’d squeezed her eyes shut for so long, the orange imprint of the study’s dimmed lighting had burned through her eyelids to her retinas, and its negative washed her surroundings in a subdued blue glow. Trick stood before her, his own eyes shut and a peaceful expression painted across his aging features. His arms hung limply at his sides, palms turned slightly outward, and his face tilted marginally upward, as if he were praying, or placating, or – the thought brought a touch of a sardonic smile to Bo’s lips – accepting energy from above. His aura was calm, peaceful, and it aggravated the frustration and irritability that scratched and clawed at her like nails on a chalkboard. She just wanted it all to stop._

_The adam’s apple that had been perfectly still along Trick’s throat bobbed, and his chin lowered slowly. His eyes fluttered open, and his gaze focused immediately on Bo’s own. He looked so calm, expectancy waited patiently in those dark brown eyes she’d come to love, to depend on, that shone with pride and adoration whenever they settled on her. Frustration and disappointment burned up from her chest and squeezed at Bo’s throat, and her carefully monitored breathing faltered, just a bit._

_She couldn’t do this._

_“You can do this, Bo. Walk through the threshold,” his voice was so composed, so quiet. It sounded like he might have only just awoken from a deep and restful sleep. He waited, patiently, on the other end of his study, for her to step forward and join him._

_Bo’s lip quivered with fearful anxiety. A muscle high up on the left side of her jaw ticked. She raised a hand in front of her, experimentally, and met no resistance. Bo knew there were still inches between her fingers and the threshold, even as she lowered her hand again and took a shuffling, insecure step forward. The thin, stiff twigs and branches that wound around the doorway shivered on either side of her, though no wind had stirred to move them. Bo wondered if they could sense her uncertainty, and irrationally, if they were laughing at her._

_One more step would take her over the threshold. Bo took in a deep breath, attempting one last time to calm the roiling emotions that shook and battered her tired soul, and stepped forward._

_Her toes met a solid wall of angry, rejecting energy. Her knee bounced painfully against it, her head crashed violently into the mystical force field and agony shot through her heart, almost physical in its power and force. It flared across her skin, the heat of it scorching every nerve ending, and sending her reeling backwards into the wooden furniture once again._

_“Goddamnit!” she swore, shoving herself away from the desk she’d crashed into and throwing her hair back out of her face. Her mouth was twisted into a disgusted snarl, and her eyebrows knit into an angry, snarling frown. “I can’t do this, Trick!” she shouted, her frustration bubbled up to the surface and pinched at the tensed muscles along her shoulders and neck._

_“Yes, you can,” exasperation breathed through Trick’s words, he sighed heavily and shifted to the table beside him. A large tome sat upon it, propped up by other books stacked untidily over the rough, worn surface. The old bartender brushed a finger against the page it was opened to, reading over again the passage he’d found to help his granddaughter through the first trial of her Dawning_.

_“No, I can’t,” Bo stomped around the twisted wooden threshold and made her way to the door. Humiliation burned low in her belly, futility and helplessness twisted in her chest and her eyes stung with the frustration that had finally bubbled to the surface with yet another failure to add to all the ones she’d tallied since the start of the day, and if Bo were truthful enough with herself, the start of her adult life._

_Trick’s head shot up at the thick, sullen tones of despair that echoed in Bo’s words. He darted towards the doorway that led up to the bar, his powerful arms spreading across the threshold to bar Bo’s exit, and his eyebrows shot straight up his forehead, crinkling his skin and leaving a look of admonishing expectancy on his face. When Bo stopped suddenly before him, he reached across to grasp her hands in his own. Her skin was so soft and young between his leathery old fingers, he rubbed his thumbs soothingly over her knuckles and tugged gently at her hands to pull her gaze to his. It hadn’t escaped him the way his granddaughter’s shoulders shook subtly with strain and disappointment._

_“Bo,” he spoke softly, and when Bo’s dark brown eyes finally met his, he gave her a small, warm, comforting smile and her hands a gentle squeeze. “You can do this,” he reassured her. He understood her fear and her doubt. After everything that had transpired over the last few days, he would have been surprised and not a little worried if Bo wasn’t affected by the events that had shaken not only her, but everyone around her._

_But Bo was strong. Not simply as a Succubus, but also as a woman. Trick had faith that Bo would succeed, that she would triumph in her Dawning and come back to the people she loved, that loved her, an even stronger woman than before._

_“Let’s try it again, okay?” he peered up into Bo’s tired brown eyes, smiled supportively and gently led her back to the table upon which they’d spread their copious amounts of research. Bo followed reluctantly, she spread her hands over the tome Trick had opened to the page about the Dawning and leaned over it. Her hair cascaded over her shoulders and around her face, hiding the resigned, weary expression that stretched in thin lines across her tired features, and sighed heavily. Trick’s hand, placed gently over her back, felt warm and reassuring. “Don’t think,” he intoned quietly, his voice a murmur in Bo’s ear, “just put everything behind you. Focus on the now – “_

_“Shift consciousness and achieve an effortless merging of action and awareness, to allow yourself to cross through the threshold,” Bo interrupted, her voice sharper than she intended and her head bobbing in time with the words that had become the mantra of this futile, frustrating exercise. She pushed herself off the table, once again allowing her exasperation to rise to the surface, and shoved the heavy book away from her. Bo’s jaw clenched, she struggled to calm herself._

_But she was so scared._

_“Bo,” once again, Trick’s voice penetrated the thick haze of anxiety that hung in a cloud around Bo. Her eyes met his, but instead of the calm patience Bo had been expecting to find there, she found worry and an apprehension that reflected her own. Once again, her hands were engulfed in his, and he gently turned her to face him._

_“I know,” she replied, interrupting him once again. She sighed heavily, her weariness felt like a physical weight across her shoulders. She wished she could just go home, crawl into bed and forget anything had ever happened, that anything was happening now, like a little child that was lost in a sea of change and confusion. Stubbornly, she drew herself up again and looked Trick directly in the eye. “I can do this,” she repeated his mantra to her, her voice soft, but determined. She had to do this, for everyone else’s sake, as well as her own. For Kenzi’s sake, for Trick’s, for Dyson’s and Lauren’s._

_She had to do this. Failure was not an option._

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

It was cold. Bo drew her full-length jacket closer around her, drew the leather tightly across her chest to shield herself from the frigid breeze that blew through the empty streets. She avoided the flickering street-lights that pooled at regular intervals over the cracked, broken sidewalk, and watched her breath solidify in a hazy, pale cloud around her face as she breathed. Softly, she recited the address she’d overheard the beautiful couple from the bar give their cab-driver. Every whisper of the apartment number, of the street name, sent a stab of covetous jealousy through her. She could charm them, go home with them, take her fill from them. Bo couldn’t acknowledge it, even in the dim, flickering streetlights she passed under, but hidden deep within her subconscious, Bo knew she was quickly unraveling.

Somewhere in the distance, a siren sounded. A cat yowled behind a trash dump further along the street. Her evenly measured footsteps clicked quietly on the filthy, badly maintained asphalt. The lights of the buildings that ranged around her, slumped together untidily and crouched sullenly against the world, were sporadic, dim and far between. It was late enough that it was early, hardly the best time for a hunt.

Bo followed the sound of the siren as it cried through the streets, it faded into the icy air, but Bo followed it all the same. This was the right part of town, the part where people forwent the Tasers and pepper-spray and went straight for knives and guns for protection. Every gritty surface was covered in graffiti, more gang tags and violent messages than the colorful, meaningful street art that showed up downtown. Bo shivered into her coat and walked quickly, she could feel eyes watching her from alleyways along the street she prowled, wary and watchful, calculating, predatory. 

But she felt no fear.

The urgent, undulating call of the siren cut the air with its shrill cries again, it gathered in strength and volume as she neared the ambulance’s destination. Bo hadn’t known exactly where it would be, but she was experienced at this now, could make good, educated guesses as to where these police cars and ambulances were headed. She wasn’t always right, in fact, she was wrong more often than not, but trying to track them down had become an interesting game, a way to pass the time while she hunted. And very often, it would lead her to the best hunting grounds in the area.

Blue and red lights flashed in dizzying, staccato notes on every surface, throwing spastic, thrashing color on the buildings, cars and streets around her. Bo’s ears rang with the screams of the police and ambulance car’s sirens, and she dropped into a crouch behind an enormous, beat up, black SUV. Her hand settled on the frozen, scratched metal of the back bumper, and she hissed against the icy pain it spread through her fingers.

Two policemen held a woman against their car, her wrists were bound in steel cuffs that shone in the painfully strobing light. Her hair hung in lank strands down the sides of her head and over her shoulders, concealing her face and looking dull and lifeless and greasy. Her clothes hung loosely over her thin frame, and her skin, bare from elbows to wrists, was sallow in the bright, screaming light. EMTs pushed a pair of gurneys to the ambulance, the bodies in both were covered head to toe in body bags. One lawman patted his accused down while the other scribbled onto a clipboard. Both were armed, their guns gleamed sinisterly in their holsters.

Finally, the sirens shut off. Silence reigned, thick and heavy through the night. It felt even louder to Bo than the wailing that had preceded it. Only the lights continued to flash, sporadic and revealing in bursts throughout the street. The ringing in Bo’s ears prevented her, at least for the time being, from discerning the muffled words that passed between the policemen and the EMTs on the scene. But their tone of voice was factual, casual. They did this all the time.

Carefully, Bo took stock of her surroundings. The darkness around corners was thick, denser where the seizing lights couldn’t reach. But Bo caught the subtle gleam of eyes peering around corners, the indistinct glow of skin as it moved through darkness. The cops had missed one of their suspects, and judging by the low, crazed laugh that burbled from the handcuffed woman’s shuddering body, had only just come to realize this. They both stared at their prisoner in shock, their hands flew to their guns, and Bo heard the snap of clasps unfastening and the click of the safeties as they came off.

Bo felt a thin, humorless smile stretch across her lips, dry and cracked in the freezing air that stilled expectantly around her. She slipped around the SUV she hid behind, creeping through the shadows across the street to the alleyway in which she’d espied the cautious movements of the woman’s partner. Her movements were fluid, she stalked closer to the unsuspecting human that stole away from the flashing police lights, and heard the sound of rushed footsteps as they pattered away into the darkness. 

They were too far away now for the searching, vigilant police officers to hear them. The ambulance had shut off its lights, and Bo could hear the crunch of its tires as it pulled away. Bo had to hold her breath and press herself close to the alley’s wall as it drove past her, but only for an instant before she broke into a run after her victim.

 


	14. Chapter 14

_His smile used to crinkle the corners of his mouth and eyes. It used to shine through his skin, giving his face a healthy, happy glow, and when he really smiled, it showed in his whole body. His chin and shoulders would rise, his chest puffing out with pride and pleasure, his arms falling back and relaxing on either side of him, and his dark brown eyes would sparkle with his mirth._

_Bo loved it when Trick smiled like that. Especially when he smiled like that at her. He was her grandfather, the only blood family she had left, and he was so very dear to her. It felt like it had been so long now since she’d seen that full-bodied smile._

_Now, he watched her with a mixture of apprehension and worry, even as he meditated and seemed tranquil while Bo attempted to step through the threshold. When his eyes opened and settled on hers, they were shrouded in anxiety. Bo could see it now, hours into her many failed attempts at crossing the mystical barrier that rejected her time and again. She hadn’t realized it earlier, distracted as she’d been by her fears, her feelings of inadequacy, her anger and frustration. But now, her resignation had given her clearer sight, and she could see that the wrinkles that lined his face were ones of sorrow and dread._

_Even he wasn’t sure she would make it through her Dawning ritual. That she wouldn’t be reduced to something he would have to keep locked up in a cage._

_“Maybe we should stop for tonight,” Bo’s voice was ragged with her exhaustion. Her shoulders were slumped against the weariness that had taken hold of her hours ago, her muscles trembled with exertion, and with the pain that had wracked them every time she tried to cross through the twiggy wooden door and was thrown back by a pulse of angry energy. She couldn’t meet the disappointment in Trick’s eyes._

_“Perhaps that’s best,” Trick replied. He scrubbed his face with his hand, not able to look into Bo’s eyes either, for fear of the resignation he could hear in the tone of her voice. Bo only nodded and gathered her things slowly, preparing to leave this nightmarish experience to go home and rest. All she wanted was a cold glass of wine, a movie, and the rest of the night spent in the comfort of her girlfriend’s warm, calming embrace. She wanted to bury her face in Lauren’s hair, breathe in the smells of wild honey that seemed to emanate from her soft skin, and lose herself in Lauren’s soothing touch, in the rich, smooth tenor of Lauren’s beautiful voice._

_“Bo,” Trick’s voice held her back, she didn’t turn to look at him from the arch that led upstairs to the Dal, only turned her face to acknowledge his call. “Please don’t give up on this,” his voice sounded as weary as Bo felt, the sound of her resignation was buried deep in his softly spoken words, “it takes most Fae years to prepare for their Dawnings. We have only days. But you can do this,” he hesitated, as if about to say something else, but decided to hold back a little. Bo gave a tiny tilt of her head, her lips pressed together. She appreciated his verbal support, she knew deep within her soul that Trick really did believe she could succeed in this Fae rite of passage, regardless of the worn, resigned quality of his voice._

_Just as he was her only living blood relative, she was his. The intense love and gratitude she felt toward her grandfather, the trust she placed in him, the faith she had in him, she knew he returned to her._

_She almost turned around to give it another go, but her whole body ached with exhaustion. Tomorrow would be another day. Refreshed and rejuvenated, she would try again tomorrow, and perhaps, even succeed. But tonight, Bo was going to drape herself halfway over the couch and halfway across Lauren’s lap, close her eyes, and bask in the loving attentions of her favorite human doctor._

_So Bo left. Her heels clicked, subdued over the waxed wooden steps, as she climbed up and away from the test that would determine Bo’s growth or death in every aspect imaginable._

 

* * *

 

 

 

It didn’t take long for Bo to catch up to her prey. She followed his light, pattering footsteps as he jogged through the streets, not going so fast as to crash into anything and draw attention to himself, but fast enough to get out of the area quickly. Blue and red police lights flashed in and out of the alleyways they dodged through as the patrols that were radioed in for back up drifted up and down the streets, searching for their missing suspect, and they had to avoid those lights too.

Within minutes, Bo had caught up to him. She grabbed a handful of his ratty, greasy T-shirt and pulled him into a cranny only her sharp eyes caught in the pitch-black night. She sandwiched him against the wall, flattened herself against him and cupped a hand over his mouth to keep him silent, just in time to dart out of reach of the probing headlights of an unmarked police car. A face peered from the window into the darkness, Bo held her breath, and with the power that had driven her into hiding, persuaded her prey into complete silence and stillness too. 

Tires crunched over asphalt, the motor ran at a low purr, and the car inched slowly past. Bo waited long after the subtle whirr of the engine faded into the blackness that swirled frozenly around them, pressed flush against the gangly man with green and brown speckled eyes that watched her with no fear or suspicion, but with dazed admiration, before she finally allowed her muscles to relax and pulled slowly, carefully away.

With one finger pressed against full, pouted lips, she motioned for him to stay quiet, gave a suggestive half-smile and flirtatious wink, and took his rough, girlishly small hand into hers. She led him through the winding streets, not totally aware of the direction she took him in, only careful to avoid nosy police cars and too well-lit areas.

It wasn’t long before she found a small, dark hide-away spot. Trash littered the floor in this little back-alley, one that looked like it had been used before by the various riff-raff that scurried like rats in this dingy, cast-away corner of the city. Beer cans and used needles glinted in the dim lighting that filtered in: the flotsam of the light pollution that had long-since made it impossible to see the stars in the black sky. It was cold here, but there was shelter from the frigid breeze that rattled street-signs and sank deep into thick layers of cloth and skin and bit even deeper into bone. A pair of old crates loitered at the far corner of the dead-end, and that was where Bo led her enamored prey. He followed without argument, his gritty hand held limply in hers and a lazy, infatuated smile curled across his cracked, broken lips.

Bo took a long look at him here. He was in worse shape than many of her past meals, and Bo could see he partook in many of the illegal substances he sold covertly on the streets. His arms were freckled with needle-scars, his misted eyes were bloodshot, and as gangly as he was, his belly was swollen and tight against the filthy white shirt he wore. His jeans were torn and stained, his black hair was matted and filthy, and cut so unevenly, Bo wondered if he’d tried to style it himself, when he’d been high.

Still, a meal was a meal. He hadn’t been an abuser for too long, his blood still pumped through his veins, strong and steady, if a little quick. Bo could hear it beat like a bass drum, could feel it pulse under her fingers as she positioned him against the wall and pressed herself against him again. His breath stank of cigarettes and stale chewing gum, his skin was rank with old sweat and what smelled like mold. He wrapped his arms around her and leaned in for a kiss.

Bo averted her face, her lips curled in a smile that didn’t reach her eyes, hadn’t reached her eyes in years, and fluttered her eyelashes against his cheek. She wouldn’t bother asking his name, it didn’t matter anymore. Once upon a time, she would have. Once upon a time, she’d been herself enough to care, to memorize the names of the men and women she killed, a penance, a punishment she had forced herself to live with. But the guilt had long become something she could no longer carry. It had broken her, and she found that to leave that guilt behind had freed her in a way she didn’t expect. To allow the monster to take hold of her, to envelop her, to cradle and care for her had killed the part of her that was human, and that had cared. Now, she only fed.

She dipped a hand into his pocket, and her fingers met with plastic. She didn’t need to pull it out to see that it was a little baggie, filled half-way perhaps with a fine white powder that wasn’t nearly as concentrated as he would claim it to be. Yes, he was most certainly the suspect the police had been searching for.

Now Bo pressed her lips against his, reviled and exultant at once by the kiss he returned with a passion and fervor that was part his, but mostly the seduction she used to coerce her victims into an ardent, erotic death. She wasted no time, but pulled the Chi immediately from his abused, but still lively body. His fingers, dug deep into the creases of her leather jacket, stiffened and curled. She could feel his sex, rigid and trembling, push through his worn pants against the insides of her thighs, and she pressed her hips against his in response. A low, growling moan passed from his lips, mingled with the Chi that tasted to Bo like a warm, summer breeze tainted with the faintest shadows of rot, into hers.

Had things been different for this olive-skinned boy, barely passed into manhood, he may have turned out attractive, gentle, kind-hearted. But just as life and the cold streets and reality had broken Bo, they had broken him too.

Bo’s hands slipped under his T-shirt. Its hem was so frayed in some parts, it had simply torn, and holes gaped in random spots along it. She could feel the heady rush of her curse warm her insides, curl like hot smoke in the crevices between her thighs. Her panties were damp with the need that always accompanied a feed, that demanded to be fed as often as the curse she’d borne since puberty. Her nipples hardened under her black cotton top, not from the cold that pressed around them, but with the ache that made her thighs clench and her nails drag against his broken, scarred skin. She could feel the pimples left behind by his adolescence under her fingertips, peppered across greasy, unwashed flesh.

His eyelids fluttered against her cheek, she could feel his weight begin to sag against the wall and pressed herself harder against him. He gave another low, guttural groan, his hips bucked against hers, he throbbed against her center, and she throbbed in kind. She slowed the pull of Chi momentarily, pulled her face away from his to stare into hooded, dazed eyes that gazed back blissfully. His hands slipped under her top, and Bo’s skin crawled with a confused mixture of disgust and desire.

“Please, don’t stop,” his moan was breathy and weak. In seconds, he would be a shuddering, seizing mess, there was very little left for Bo to take. But Bo wasn’t about to waste any part of her meal. She only stopped to revel in the incredible sensation of living power pulsing under her skin, warming her insides like a good, rich bourbon. She pressed her swollen lips against his again, her throat humming with the growl that rose unbidden with the empty, aching lust that spread hot, wet, and sticky against her thighs. Her final kiss was rough as she tore the last of his Chi from him, her teeth scraped against his mouth, breaking the skin and sending a sweet, bitter rush of blood from his mouth to her tongue.

Bo’s heart thudded with the sweet ecstasy this gave her. Her hips crashed against his, sensation exploded everywhere under her skin, fireworks danced under her wildly fluttering eyelids. Never had she bitten so hard as to taste blood before, and the coppery flavor might once have absolutely reviled her, but now, she found she had a taste for it. Her nails bit deep into his skin, her whole body buzzed with the high that came with feeding, made more intense by the blood that bled into the Chi she devoured greedily.

When she was done, she stepped away, and he slid lifelessly to the dirty, broken asphalt below. She had drained him dry, so that he didn’t even twitch with the last vestiges of the life he had wasted. A creepy, erogenous grin stretched mindlessly across his face, spider-webbed with death.

Bo’s legs trembled. Lust pounded through her curvy, luscious frame, and she found, without the slightest shred of remorse or disappointment, that she wasn’t yet sated. She would have fucked him, if she hadn’t been so damn hungry to begin with. But she’d fed so hard and so fast, she hadn’t had the time.

That was okay. Bo trailed her thumb under her lip, a slow, sadistic smile crept across it as she wiped away the dribble of saliva his hot mouth had left there. Her whole body hummed with power and insatiable lust. She would find another, something sexy and delicious, and she would feed again. He had simply been the main course, the meal she’d eaten simply in order to survive. Her next conquest, her next victim, would be dessert.

The Succubus picked her way over dead legs splayed messily over the sidewalk and stalked out of the alleyway. False dawn edged the sky above with a murky, dirty shade of gray, but the streets were still dark. And in that darkness, Bo’s eyes glowed a sinister, cerulean blue.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

_He had called her at two o’clock in the morning. He’d said it was urgent, to come by the Dal as soon as she could make it there. Of course, the evening with Lauren that Bo had planned out hadn’t gone as planned, and she’d spent the night instead having nightmares about the image of herself in the spindle, of Kyle’s death, of her mother’s voice ringing over and over in her ears._

_‘You’re a slut!’ she’d cried, ‘a whore! You are not my daughter, and you never were!’_

_Mary Dennis’ words had never left her. Bo had never forgotten them. They’d always been playing, somewhere in the back of her mind: lost, hushed, but never quite forgotten. Now, with the memories of Kyle fresh again in her heart, the disheartening absence of Lauren, and the images of the bloodied, blue-eyed, horn-headed Succubus that invaded her dreams, those words had gained an intensity and fervor, and reverberated mercilessly in the silence that had suffused Bo’s solitary night at the clubhouse. Even Kenzi had gone to bed early, she was already knocked out by the time Bo had come home._

_So though Bo grumbled into the phone when Trick called and woke her, she was relieved despite her weariness to be trudging out of bed and rushing off to the pub that had become a second home to her._

_Bo had always known her mother was right. She had always known that she was an abomination, that the devil was inside her, that she was evil. She had simply pushed that knowledge away, had ignored it, in the hopes that if she never gave it thought, that it would simply cease to be true. And perhaps, in a way, the truth had changed. Perhaps that devil wasn’t inside her. Perhaps that devil_ was _her._

_Bo toyed with the cup in her hands, her gaze flickering from the slightly steaming brown liquid inside to the woman sitting opposite her, and back again to the foul-smelling tea she held. Her nose crinkled against the bitter scent, but she raised the teacup to her mouth anyway and slurped it down. It tasted as foul as it smelled, but Bo knew this wasn’t meant to be a pleasantry. That it was necessary to whatever the lean, beautiful woman did, and Bo suspected that whatever she did had very much to do with the Dawning that drew ever closer, that disturbed her dreams and dashed all her hopes for reality._

_The dregs slid down her throat and brought a grimace of disgust to Bo’s tightly pressed lips. She replaced the cup on its saucer and tried to offer a smile to the Fae woman Trick had found to help them._

_“Chunky,” Bo offered, trying not to sound falsely cheerful and failing miserably. She pushed the cup away from her and drew a deep breath. Bo couldn’t guess how this woman was supposed to help her through her trial, she was beginning to feel like there was nothing that could prepare her, nothing that could save her. She was a monster, and Bo knew it. Still, she chanced a quick glance at the strawberry blonde sitting opposite her, watched with curious eyes that, despite herself, still glimmered with the tiniest seeds of hope. “So what does it say?”_

_Bo had heard of the art of tea-reading before. She wasn’t sure she believed in it, it all sounded like such hokey to her. As if the way the tea leaves settled in the cup after she’d finished drinking it would tell anyone anything about her future. How could it know? How could any one person learn to interpret its symbols, even if it knew? And why would the tea even bother to tell? So Bo did what Kenzi always did when she was uncomfortable and skeptical: she clowned, “Will I meet a brave knight and marry all my problems away?”_

_This earned her a sharp intake of breath and an annoyed look from the woman sitting opposite her. The blonde held the tea cup in her hands and turned it as she looked in, and the severe expression of irritation swiftly changed into one of mild curiosity and a little unease._

_“Why deny your fear, child?” she asked it like it was an honest question. Bo’s mouth fell from its teasing smile into a grimace of frustration and impatience._

_“Uh, because it’s scary?” Irritability from lack of sleep and the unending suspense that had held her for the past few days in its prickly grasp colored her words, and she regretted their sharpness immediately. Trick’s face fell into a disapproving frown, he drew his shoulders back in silent reproach and cleared his throat, and Bo regretted her words, and her tone, even more. She never wanted to make Trick feel anything less than pride in her._

_Bo sighed heavily, her shoulders falling with the tension she forced out with her breath, and she waved her hand dismissively in the air. “Sorry,” she apologized, “I’m just… a little on edge. Miss…?”_

_“Stella Nashira,” Stella still held the cup firmly in her fingers, and her look showed the offense she’d clearly taken, the impatience Bo could sense she felt with her, “and a Lodestar’s work cannot be rushed.” Stella’s own words in response to Bo’s were equally sharp. Bo stared back at her, her brow drawn into lines of agitation and discomfort. She felt like a child being chastised by the adults around her, and she hated it, she felt petulant and angry. Bo seemed to always feel petulant and angry since her experience at O’Meara’s mansion, which, like the snake eating its own tail, only made her feel more angry._

_When would this ever stop?_

_“Stella has given guidance to hundreds of our kind as they prepared for the Dawning,” Trick was speaking now, and Bo half-turned her head to listen, though her eyes, distrustful and wary, never left Stella’s. The tension she’d attempted to expel with a sigh had returned in full-force. And though Bo’s uneasy gaze never left Stella’s pale eyes, she knew Trick was smiling a little uncomfortably, but also very pleadingly, at the woman who sat across from them._

_Bo knew his reassurances ought to have given her some small comfort, but they didn’t. And she squirmed a little inside to see the piercing way in which Stella stared at her, as if undressing her soul with her eyes, picking her history apart and analyzing all the bare, broken little pieces._

_“You harbor great rage,” Stella leaned forward. Bo could smell lavender and rosemary on her skin, and though Bo knew it was a subtle scent, it seemed heavy and thick in the air around her. Stella’s mouth twitched, she turned her head, and Bo could almost imagine the way she turned and twisted the broken puzzle-pieces of her soul to examine them, the way she had turned the cup in her hands to examine the leaves that lay at its bottom. “And great regret,” Stella’s voice sounded almost surprised. Bo tensed a little in her hard wooden chair, uncomfortable with the criticizing way Stella looked at her. She kept her hands clasped tightly in front of her and frowned tight-lipped at the Lodestar. “These two negatives are making it very hard for you to know yourself. Embrace your true identity.”_

_Incredulity flared across Bo’s features. Her jaw dropped for a second and she drew herself back, mildly insulted and feeling strangely violated._

_“Well, everyone has hang-ups,” her words came out a little snappish. She was growing impatient with this stupid little dog and pony show, her heart thudded in her chest with her growing irritation and anxiety. Now, she just wanted to go home again. And still, as though Bo had never spoken, Stella went on._

_“The blockage can usually be traced back to some childhood imprint,” Stella leaned back again, her face was drawn and disturbed, and she looked at Bo without seeming to really see her, “parental source?”_

_Exasperation flared throughout Bo, like a hot, burning fire that ate at what little patience she had left._

_“God, it’s always Mommy issues with you guys,” she rolled her eyes. What was it with shrinks and their stupid, Freudian theories? Bo’s voice was impatient, bordering almost on rude, as she continued, “okay, look. Aife and I had problems. But, ugh,” Bo stumbled over her words, flustered. Stella’s expression had flipped to one of perturbed confusion, “but we worked them out, with good, old-fashioned hand-to-hand combat.”_

_“You call your mother by her name. Did Aife not raise you?”_

_Bo stared at Stella with an expression that edged on disgust. But the disgust she felt was not directed to the clearly intelligent, perceptive woman that sat across from her, that judged her with her clear, pale eyes, but for herself._

_“Aife is Bo’s biological mother,” Trick clarified. Bo’s eyes closed slowly, she allowed Trick to continue his explanation while cold realization sunk in, stealing away what little perseverance and energy Bo had left. “And she and her adopted mother, Mary, also had a falling out,” while Trick spoke, he walked to stand beside Stella. Bo released a tired breath, accepting the fact that Stella had been right, but reluctant to admit it._

_“Twice the mommies, twice the baggage,” defiance colored Bo’s words. She felt just like a rebellious teenager again, being chastised by her parents. It didn’t help that Trick stared at her so studiously, so worriedly, or that Stella frowned tight-lipped across the table at her._

_She never, ever, wanted to disappoint Trick._

_“You must confront the source of your estrangement.” It was like a punishment, handed to her from a stranger, for something that hadn’t been her fault, for something that had already hurt her, had already punished her, so much. Resistance and belligerence ballooned in Bo’s chest, she drew back almost as if slapped and stared from Stella to Trick and back again in abject horror._

_“No. I can’t,” disdain and defiance curled Bo’s lip, “I wont!”_

_“Your anger is hurting you,” judgment and finality oozed from Stella’s words. Bo’s fists were clenching over the table, anger flared across her cheeks, darkening the natural blush that pinked them._

_“_ She _hurt me!” Bo retaliated, angry and insistent and unmoving. Her heart splintered at the disheartened way in which Trick closed his eyes and sighed, but Bo didn’t think she could handle going back only to be destroyed by the woman she had loved and respected above all others in the world all over again._

_“You have to go home, Bo,” the walls seemed to be closing in around her with every word Stella uttered. Triumph seemed to lurk behind her beautiful, elegant features. “You must forgive.”_

_The walls were closing in around her, and they were peppered with huge, sharp spikes destined to impale her, to bleed her of every ounce, every drop of feeling before the walls themselves crushed her into a fine, crimson mist. Bo struggled against its inevitability._

_“Like hell I do.” Her words came at a harsh whisper. Stiff-backed, she rose from her chair. Her chest was tight with dread, her throat choked with the anguish her mother had already caused her, with the words that haunted her dreams and dragged at her soul with their condemnatory hatefulness._

_“Look, I will do whatever it takes to survive this,” she hated the way her voice shook and struggled to steady it, “but I will not spend one more minute with that ignorant, warped bigot.” Bo’s fingers tapped and settled on the rough wooden table beneath and she leaned on them slightly, driving her point as far home as she could with her aggressive posturing and the tight pull of her mouth._

_“But you’ll devolve into an Under-Fae,” Trick’s anxiety and aggravation were evident in his tone, and in the way he moved his hands and stared up at her with those big, brown eyes Bo never wanted to see so worried and upset. But she was already so angry, so hurt and betrayed, it only served to steel her resolve and emphasize to her just how horrible a creature Bo really was._

_She shrugged her shoulders, her eyebrows raised in an unhappy stare and her mouth set stubbornly against him. “Then let’s hope it’s a nice cage,” she replied, her voice soft with the hurt and fear and self-disgust that throbbed and bled like a naked artery, and turned away. She stalked out of the Dal, leaving Stella and her grandfather behind, staring after her in doubt and distress._

 


	15. Chapter 15

Bo couldn’t remember the names of the women that had caught her eye at the bar. But she remembered the address, remembered the shapes the words and letters had left on her mouth when she’d whispered it to herself as they slipped into a cab to head home. They left a smile on her lips when she repeated them to the cabbie that drove her there now, and she left the older, clean-shaven, bright eyed man with a light touch to his shoulder that left him shuddering with excitement before she slipped out of the car. Her smile wasn’t warm, or wistful, excited or wishful. It was predatory and wolfish, and had the enamored cab driver seen it with his own, unaffected eyes, it would have made him shudder and recoil in terror.

She paused for a moment to peer up at the building in front of her. Dawn had creased the sky, and it flared bright gold behind her. The silhouette of the city’s skyline lurked in the bright, warm colors of the newborn day, skyscrapers hulked like massive monsters hiding from its pure, virgin light. The eerie, obscene glow of Bo’s eyes had dimmed somewhat, so that their blue looked almost as natural as a pair of colored contacts. Bo’s tongue skimmed over her top lip in anticipation, and with sure steps and a swinging, self-assured gait, she swaggered up to the building’s door and broke the lock with one strong hand. Like a shadow, she slipped past the threshold, the last dirty vestige of the dying night’s filthy sin to commit one last wicked deed.

It was a beautiful building, all marble and deep, plush rugs and soft leather couches. The reception desk in the foyer was a warm, dark wood, with golden grain that swooped along its surfaces. It was still too early for people to be milling in the open spaces of the lobby, not even the building’s secretary shuffled papers at his desk or checked the phone lines for messages. Bo stalked across the room, the tranquil, graceful splendor of the décor lost on the single-minded creature whose hunger gnawed like a ravenous beast in her belly. She took the stairs two-by-two, the elevator would take too long and excitement had made her too twitchy to wait, and before long, found herself in front of the very door whose number Bo had repeated to herself under her breath like a mantra.

She raised a loose fist to knock on the door and paused. These two women were not corrupt. They were not murderers, or thieves, or liars or rapists. As far as Bo had seen from serving them their drinks the previous night, they were simply two women in love, two successful, kind-hearted, good women who had only come out to share a drink and a meal, and enjoy the ambiance that a nice, busy bar exuded. They had smiled sweetly at each other, and on occasion, at Bo and the people that milled and loitered around them, had left a big tip for their bartender and walked out the door at the end of the night hand-in-hand, with the air of two women with peaceful souls and easy minds.

It was something Bo had craved her whole life. For thirteen long years, Bo had been on the run, had killed to survive, had drowned and suffocated under the weight of her guilt. All she’d ever wanted, ever striven for and dreamed about, had been to walk like that, hand-in-hand with someone she loved, with her own heart and mind at ease and a happy, sweet smile on her own face.

But even feeding on the wicked and cruel had not eased the torment of her soul. And she was no longer just a broken woman, fighting to survive and surviving on the dregs of society. She was tired of the tainted, sour taste of the soiled and morally bankrupt she found in the darkest corners of the deepest alleys of the seediest streets, it would no longer sate the overpowering hunger that had driven her every day for the past thirteen years to feed on the sexual energy of others. She ached to taste the sweet, clean flavors of the gentler people that brightened the world. And she would start with the couple that had caught her eye that night in the bar.

Her knuckles rapped solidly on the wooden door, and when it finally eased open, it did so silently, smoothly, and the air that rushed out from its airy insides was cool and fresh against Bo’s skin. The blonde stood across the threshold from her, her head tilted to the side expectantly and a dazed, sleepy smile pulling at the corners of her lips.

Bo didn’t bother to explain. She only smiled in return, a grin only slightly less predatory and wolfish than before, and brushed the backs of her knuckles against the fingers curled around the edge of the door. Hunger burned a cold, blue fire in her sapphire eyes, and they flared with the intensity of it.

“Hello,” Bo husked. She bit her lip and nodded when the blonde, at once completely enamored with her surprise guest, gestured for her to come in. Bo brushed past, allowed her hand to swoop across her victim’s bare, porcelain collarbone and cup the slender shoulder on its other side. Her fingers trailed along smooth, clean skin, down her arm and into the warm hand that jumped to envelop Bo’s fingers within its grasp. “Where’s your girlfriend?” Bo’s voice was low and sultry, her eyes hooded with ill-concealed excitement and uncontained lust.

“In the bedroom,” she replied, and the low tenor of her voice sent shivers of arousal skimming down Bo’s spine into the throbbing, aching center of her need.

“Show me,” sensuality dripped from Bo’s coarsely whispered words, she leaned in to graze her lips against the sweet-smelling skin of the blonde’s neck. It arched against Bo’s mouth and Bo smiled into the kiss she left on the pounding pulse-point she found at its base. 

“Okay…” the word trembled in the air, hazy and shimmering in the bare, wanton hunger that swept around the pair in a cloud of hot, humid desire. The blonde, who Bo simply thought of as ‘Lover’, pulled urgently at Bo’s hand, and on legs that were shaky with yearning and anticipation, led her through an open, art-lined living room to a wide airy corridor and into a bedroom where thin linen drapes billowed and swelled with the fresh morning breeze, far warmer than the dead night’s frozen air, that blew in. An enormous bed filled the space of the room, and the creamy, golden-peach sheets were rumpled and twisted around the curvy, caramel-skinned body of Lover’s lover. Dark, frizzy hair spilled over a pillow and formed a halo around ‘Prey’s face, smooth and unlined with worry or age. Hazel eyes fluttered open, and the sunlight that streamed in through the windows glinted in the golden specks that hid shyly amongst the rich woodsy green of her eyes.

“Babe?” Prey’s voice, warm and thick with sleep and confusion, drifted languidly in the crisp morning air. Lover only smiled dazedly and led Bo to the foot of the bed. With her hand still grasped in Lover’s, Bo crawled into sheets still cozy from the body that had warmed it and leaned down to press a gentle kiss to Prey’s bare ankle. Air rushed in a heavy sigh from Prey’s parted rosy-brown lips, and her eyes fluttered closed again, and Bo’s heart thudded with the sweet anticipation of the delicious feast spread before her. Heat pulsed between her thighs, she smiled into the lingering kisses she trailed along Prey’s ankle, up her finely-toned leg and to her bare, trembling thigh. Bo pulled her boots off slowly and shuddered with pleasure under the gentle fingers that trailed across her hips, slid along the waist of her pants and plucked at the button above her crotch. Prey rose from the bed slowly, and the silk sheets slipped away from her warm, toasted skin. Bo raised her face to taste the soft skin around a bare, pert nipple, then to take hot, moist lips with her own.

Lover had pulled Bo’s pants down around her ankles and slipped them off as Bo raised each foot to climb onto the bed. Her skin shivered with arousal at the sensation of silky golden hair spilling over her skin, Lover pressed molten kisses to her back and hips, slipped her hand under the band of Bo’s dark purple panties, and pressed the pads of her fingertips against slippery lips. Bo sucked in a sharp breath and released it in a shivering gasp against Prey’s mouth. Lips shuddered and pressed against hers harder in response, and Bo reveled in the incredible, long-denied feeling of being loved. Her shirt slipped up under Prey’s slender, deft fingers, she rose to allow Prey to pull it over her head and toss it to the floor.

“My God,” Lover’s sigh was worshipful, Bo turned her burning blue eyes to gaze down at the blonde’s upturned face. “You’re beautiful,” the words were whispered, and Bo knelt to kiss the mouth that complimented her so artlessly. Lover rose to return the kiss, and they both tumbled together into the bed beside Prey, arms and legs entangled in a study of color that tinted from porcelain to caramel. Kisses trailed Bo’s body, from her mouth and jaw and neck, down to the dip between her breasts and over the matching purple bra that cupped each round, heaving mound of flesh, over her shoulders and down her back, down to the dimples above each buttock and over the line of her purple panties around her hips. Fingers slipped over every inch of Bo’s aching skin, drew a long, low moan of contentment that was echoed by sighs of adulation from the women that pressed themselves against her. Lover found Bo’s mouth again, her tongue slid between Bo’s lips and licked against her teeth. Her fingers dexterously released the clasp of her bra and trailed a sizzling line of heat and arousal along Bo’s shoulder as she slipped it off. 

Bo pulled away for a moment, smoldering blue eyes raked over Lover’s body, half-concealed under the sky-blue silk robe that pooled in the crevices of her curves and on the bed around her. Kisses still pressed hot and wet on her hip, but Bo put a gentle hand on the curly-haired head that left them there and raised Prey’s chin, so that her hazel gaze might meet her own.

“I want you to watch. I want you to touch yourself. Pleasure yourself,” Bo rasped huskily at the caramel-skinned beauty who gazed at her adoringly from the foot of the bed. She was answered with a slow nod and a final, lingering kiss pressed to the outside of her thigh, before Prey slithered off the bed and crashed into the love-seat across the room. Prey was gloriously naked, only a single tattoo swirled and curled its way around her ankle. She parted her knees and her fingers slid down her belly to caress the wet, swollen clitoris below. Prey released a low gasp of appreciation and watched hungrily while Bo turned her attention back to the blonde that lay beside her.

 Bo stared in open, wanton lust at Lover. She shifted her weight so that she towered over the blonde’s beautiful, slender form, and her silken gold hair lay in a halo over the pillow under her head. Tawny eyes with flecks that sparkled like stars stared up at her with a mixture of awe, of love, and of absolute, insatiable lust. Lover’s fingers skimmed along the sides of Bo’s body and slipped under the hem of Bo’s panties, her touch sent spasms of hot pleasure across Bo’s skin. She leaned down and captured Lover’s lips in her own and buried her fingers in thick, rich rivers of gold. Their bodies pressed together, Lover hissed with pleasure against Bo’s mouth and the fingers that played with Bo’s panties tugged them down to her ass.

The couple rocked in the bed together, thighs clenched between thighs, slick heat sliding and dripping down skin that flushed beneath the brush of toned, clenched muscle and tender, moist kisses. Bo allowed Lover to roll them both over, and with fingers trembling and hungry for more, slid the silk robe over the blonde’s shoulders. It whispered over her skin and slid into a puddle of shimmering fabric to the mattress beside them, and Bo pulled Lover’s body to press against her own. The sensation of skin on skin, of raised, hardened nipples against her chest, of Lover’s curved navel ring warm and pressing against her abdomen, elicited a slow, drawn-out moan from Bo’s mouth that echoed deep in the cavern of Lover’s. Bo tangled her fingers in soft golden hair and pulled her head down. Hot wet kisses blazed a trail of seduction along Bo’s neck, soft lips meandered around one breast and closed over her bare nipple, and Bo gasped when teeth closed over the hard nub. Bo’s body arched under Lover’s, electricity sparked over her skin and Bo clenched her thighs around the slender one between them. The groan Lover gave at the feeling of wet heat scorching her skin shivered against the soft, blushing areola, and Bo moaned in reply.

Lips grazed the valley between Bo’s breasts, kisses trailed slowly down Bo’s body and a tongue licked gently, teasingly down to Bo’s belly. It dipped with the breath Bo sucked in through her teeth, her eyes closed and her fingers clenched in the curls of Lover’s hair with the sweet delight of being touched, kissed, worshipped in the way her lover touched, kissed and worshipped her now. Strong fingers braced the insides of Bo’s thighs, parting them tenderly, and Bo cried out in an ecstasy so intense it was agonizing when lips, soft, moist and swollen with the kisses they’d already shared brushed a tender kiss to Bo’s engorged, aching clitoris. Lover’s hot tongue flicked out and dragged over Bo’s walls, and Bo arched into the caress, unable to suppress another low, deep groan of absolute pleasure.

A moan from across the room echoed in response. Bo’s eyelids fluttered open for a moment to see Prey’s face twisted in pleasure while her fingers dipped in and out of her own center. Her arousal gleamed and dripped and pooled on the seat she occupied, Bo pulled Lover’s face closer to her sex and arched again into the open mouth that sucked and licked and kissed her. The air around them, charged with the electric energy of their love-making, shimmered with the heat and lust that enveloped them, made all the more powerful by Bo’s own seductive abilities.

The tongue that dipped in and out and around the pulsing edges of Bo’s sex drove her closer and closer to the edge. She gripped the sheets crumpled beneath her with one hand and tugged the head between her legs close so that she could feel Lover’s cheeks press against her lips, and her nose rub against her aching, over-sensitized clitoris. She groaned heavily around her rushed, shallow panting, and arched again when two fingers slid inside her. Heat rushed and pounded and pulsed around her, and Bo was lost in a haze of lust and passion so tense, so fraught with desire and intensity, she thought she might simply explode. And she would have died happy.

Two fingers became three. They curled inside Bo, and the slow rhythm they’d started became an erratic beating that Bo rocked against frantically. She was close, hot breath gathered in her lungs and her lips parted in a silent, choked cry, waiting for the release Bo knew would come crashing into her. A sudden, ragged shout of release came from across the room, dragging Bo to a dizzying height she had never achieved before. And then Lover’s mouth fell on Bo’s throbbing, aching bud, and Bo’s back arched so that only her head, shoulders and ass remained in contact with the bed. And then the mouth suckled the over-sensitive mound, and the scream of ecstasy that Bo had held in for what had felt like forever finally tore from her throat, and she crashed into her climax. Sensation burst like fireworks over her skin, molten ecstasy screamed inside her, and she jerked with the intensity of her orgasm.

Lover’s fingers continued to work inside Bo, even as she clenched and shuddered around them. Lips drifted slowly up Bo’s body, skimmed over sweat-filmed skin, then buried kisses into the curve of Bo’s neck. Lover hummed with pleasure, and the sweet vibrations of her mouth sent a shiver of gratitude, of release, of contentment buzzing through Bo’s trembling body.  

Prey rose from the couch, her cheeks, her lips, her neck and chest blushing with her own release, and stumbled on unsteady legs to the bed. Both women surrounded Bo on both sides, caressed her with their gentle fingers and pressed sweet, tender kisses to Bo’s hot skin.

When Bo smiled, it was the first time in thirteen years it reached her eyes. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

_When he smiled that full-bodied, proud, shining smile, the whole world felt like it lit up to Bo, and she basked in the warmth that smile showered down on her. That smile that had been so rare for so long had finally graced his lips, his shoulders fell and drew back, his chest rose with his pride and delight, and he beamed like a beacon at Bo as she bounced gleefully in and out of the barrier that, only two days ago, had rejected her so completely._

_It had been so heartening to see that smile on her grandfather’s face, and her heart felt lighter in her chest than it had in weeks. For a moment, for just a moment, she felt free – free of the guilt that had ridden her like a monkey on her back, free of the fear that had come with the knowledge that, with a single misstep and a single, passionate kiss that lasted only seconds too long, that she could kill. Free of the disappointment and worry that had hung over her like a cloud from the moment she’d found out about her Dawning. For a moment, she was only the triumphant student, basking in her grandfather’s pride and in the solemn, but not unrelieved congratulations of her tutor._

_Even if it was only for a moment._

_And it had felt so good to see her mother again. To have the closure she hadn’t even realized she’d so desperately needed. To forgive Mary, and herself, for the harsh words they’d exchanged the night that Bo left, for the fear and anger they’d allowed to separate them. It was so hard to see the way her mother had deteriorated, and the uncertainty of how her mother would react to her presence every time Bo entered the room had been terrifying, torturous. To have those old wounds torn open again, re-examined…_

_Perhaps those wounds would never fully heal. And Bo would never be okay about the circumstances under which Kyle had died: the truth of his death at her own hands would never rest easy on her soul. None of the bodies she’d left behind in her wake after running away from home would ever rest easy on her soul. She would carry that blame with her for the rest of her life. But at least Bo knew: she wasn’t a monster. She was a strong woman, with a home, a family, and friends. And she would never be alone._

_And she could forgive her mother’s ignorance and fear, and more importantly, she could forgive her own. The life she had now, with Kenzi, with Lauren, with Trick and Dyson: this was the good life of a good woman, and Bo had the power and self-control now to make a difference. To make things better. The power that had driven her to kill and to run, that had seemed so monstrous and frightening and enigmatic, had been turned like the edge of a knife. With the balance that Trick and Dyson and Kenzi and Lauren had bought to her life, she’d turned that edge so that her power could be used for good, and what had been monstrous and frightening and enigmatic became strength and beauty and understanding._

_But even as Bo slipped quietly through the streets from the Dal to the clubhouse that had become home, Bo wondered if she would always remember this feeling. Would the clarity with which she saw the world and her circumstances now always be there, or would the guilt she carried with her over the deaths of so many innocents one day cloud her vision again? Would the day come when the lives she’d stolen became a burden too heavy for her to carry?_

_Sunlight filtered golden and misty between tall buildings and trees, and Bo stopped in a glowing pool of it to turn her face up to the sky and stare at the sunset that painted it in soft pinks and creamy oranges and a blue so pale it faded to white. Her eyelashes fluttered against the clean brightness of the setting sun’s light, and she closed them to focus instead on the warmth it spread in a slow, tingling wave across her skin. She could feel her shadow fall behind her, long and thin across the warm asphalt that stretched beneath her feet._

_Deep beneath the still peace that came with the understanding of who and what she was, sunk even below the forgiveness she’d granted herself for the person she had once been, was an uncertainty that remained like the places in between the light that fell on her and the shadow she dropped to the pavement. Invisible to the naked eye, invisible even beneath the observant lens of a microscope, but on some subatomic level, there were empty spaces that yawned, and a slow uncertainty that lacked any form crept and slithered between the cracks._

_And though Bo had forgiven herself for the person she had once been and the mistakes she’d made, and finally understood the person she was now, she knew it didn’t mean she needn’t be vigilant about the person she could become. There were far worse things than a devolution on a genetic level. And Bo knew that being a Succubus, whether she understood what that meant or not, whether she understood who she was or not, would only make her a far more dangerous person should she devolve in heart or soul._

 


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This chapter gets pretty nasty. If you have a sensitive stomach, or get grossed out easily, please skip to the end of the chapter for a quick, less graphic play-by-play. Bold parts are safe to read.

As Bo lay in Lover’s arms, reveled in the light, reverent kisses Prey trailed across her naked skin and panted into the curtain of soft, thick golden hair she had buried her face into, the cravings of another kind of hunger stirred low in her belly. She could feel golden morning light spill through the opened window and warm her skin, the gentle breeze that drifted in caressed her, the hum and drone of cars driving past below on the street buzzed in the air that cooled slowly, lazily around them. Bo shifted in the peach silk sheets, they whispered quietly under her, and she moved to settle her weight over the blonde beauty that lay, panting and wide-eyed and open-mouthed beneath her. Prey still pressed doting kisses along her back, trailed them along to the side of her breast as Bo moved, and traced her fingers along the contours of Bo’s body.

Hunger writhed low and insatiable, both in the hot, humid place between Bo’s legs and in the endless, fathomless pit of Bo’s supernatural self. Strong arms wound around Bo and pulled her closer, Lover’s mouth found the place along her neck where her pulse leapt erratically. A pair of silken, exquisitely toned legs rose on either side of Bo’s hips, slid sensuously down to tangle with Bo’s own, and Bo was lost in the sensation of two mouths pressing hot, wet kisses to her skin, of warm, curly hair whispering against her back and shoulders, of two pairs of hands caressing her, stroking every sensitive, aching inch of her body.

Electricity tingled along every nerve ending. Bo gasped at the intensity of her sudden arousal, arched her back and moaned at the feel of Lover’s naked body arching against hers in reply. She wrapped an arm around Lover, leaned on it and groaned softly again at the sweet pressure of her breast squeezed tightly against Lover’s, then threw an arm around the olive-skinned Prey that vied for her attention and slid her own leg over Bo’s.

Arousal dripped down the insides of Bo’s thighs, hot and begging to be lapped up by a full mouth and teasing tongue. A hand smoothed over Bo’s backside, and Bo caught the hungry look that smoldered in Prey’s hazel eyes. As Bo leaned down to press her lips to the dark ones that opened in invitation below, that hand slid over the top of Bo’s thigh and slithered in the narrow crevice between Bo’s hips and Lover’s, and fingers curled and slipped inside the wet folds and Bo gave a soft, sharp cry into the warm, damp mouth that kissed her. Every nerve ending jumped and screamed with pleasure at every slip and slide of those deft, slender fingers, and Bo’s hunger coiled and writhed with a desperate need to be sated. Bo’s fingers tangled into thick, golden hair and tightened, and with the arm she’d wrapped around the woman that fucked her, she pulled away and slid her own fingers into the wet, trembling heat between Lover’s open legs. And Bo’s mouth left Prey’s and fastened fervently onto Lover’s lips, to massage passionate, ardent kisses into them and swallow her low cry of pleasure. Her hunger only intensified when Lover’s hand fell from her arching, flexing back to scrape across mocha skin and slide into the damp gap between Bo’s skin and Prey’s convulsing thigh, and offer pleasure to the exotic beauty pressed against them both.

The air around them grew hot with the pants and gasps and thick, heavy moans of the three women that gave into every carnal, sexual whim. It shivered in the molten light that fell between the thin linen drapes and pooled like liquid gold on the waxed hard-wood floors. The bed creaked with the efforts of the three women that bucked and writhed, the sound of wet lips and fingers smacking against skin and the rustle of hair against sheets filled the room with crackling, frantic intensity, and Bo’s eyes shone a blue so deep and intense, their light reflected against Lover’s cheek and left a glowing crescent of power that resonated deep in her skin and had her gasping stammered professions of love into the mouth that never fully left her own.

And when Bo neared the edge, when Lover’s thighs trembled around her hand and Prey’s lithe, supple body crashed and strained against her own and the frantic, strangled moans of the women tangled in her echoed and shivered against Bo’s skin, Bo pulled her lips from Lover’s and tore honeyed Chi from her like nectar from a flower. The warm, golden taste, clean and pure and sweet, filled her mouth, its fragrance invaded Bo’s senses, it intoxicated her, and as it sent her careening over the edge, it sent Lover and, like a domino, Prey, crashing into a climax that intensified with every shared jolt and shiver and guttural cry of absolute, carnal bliss.

Bo inhaled every last shred of Lover’s energy, drank it down greedily within seconds until every last drop was gone and Lover lay, still twitching with the force of her ecstasy, but irreversibly dead, beneath her. She panted into the warm, yellow rivulets of hair that cascaded across the pillow, pressed farewell kisses into the soft, unfeeling cheek that brushed against her own, and smiled her old, hollow smile.

While two hungers, sexual and mystical, had been sated, a third rumbled low in her belly. And Bo remembered the delicious, coppery taste of blood on her tongue. A mouth, warm and living crept across her back. And Bo could feel the blood, sweet and hot, beat under soft, swollen layers of skin, its tempo still erratic with the pleasure that raced like fire across Bo’s still trembling body.

Bo turned in bed, leaving Lover’s still warm but stone-still body beside her and sending the lifeless arm draped across her hips tumbling to the mattress. She wound her arms around Prey’s and pulled them both up to sit. Their legs wound around one another’s waists, and Prey, insensible to her girlfriend’s death, leaned in single-mindedly to steal another long, wet kiss from her killer’s cruelly curled lips. Teeth closed over soft, pliant flesh, Bo’s fingers dug deep into dark skin, and the cry that tore itself from Prey’s throat, mixed with combined pleasure and agony, tumbled and bubbled over the blood that rushed from her shorn mouth.

Blood welled around Bo’s nails, it beaded, gathered and dripped over the soft, mocha skin of Prey’s back, but it gushed and spewed from her broken mouth and splattered across Bo’s cheeks into an eerie, red-faced grin. Prey convulsed in a confused struggle for freedom and release, and she gave another shuddering, choked cry that drowned deep in her throat before it ever left her lips.

Bo suckled at Prey’s torn bottom lip, allowed the sticky, vibrant juice to fill her mouth and pour down her chin. She lapped at the raw, rough flesh with her tongue, reveled in the panicked screams that swelled in the chest she held tightly against her own, and bit again into the broken, gaping flesh that still oozed sweet, delicious blood. It dripped hot and sizzling along her face and neck when Bo pressed her lips to the soft, warm space behind Prey’s jaw, the low murmur of her voice growled ferally into Prey’s ear, “Do you want me to stop?”

Power pulsed from Bo’s bloodied skin into the curly-haired brunette that shuddered and sobbed in her arms. Hot breath, wet with the blood that splattered in tiny droplets with every exhale, snuffled against her skin. Rough, curly hair scratched against Bo’s face and neck.

“N-no…” she managed to stutter.

A cold, empty chuckle rose from Bo’s chest. She dipped her head, rested her lips against Prey’s beating, hammering pulse point for an instant, then she opened her mouth again and bit deep into the shivering flesh between her teeth. For a long moment, she allowed the sickly, sticky liquid to seep between her lips, for its rich, heavy scent to invade her nostrils, for its heat to scald her tongue and burn down her throat. Then, she tore her head back, and a thick, dripping chunk of Prey’s throat tore away with her and a sizzling geyser of ruby sap squirted in a long, elegant arc over Bo’s head to splatter against the white-washed walls of the bedroom.

Bo bathed in blood, felt it drench her hair, soak through her scalp and trickle against her skin. She licked and lapped at the pools that formed in the dips and hollows of Prey’s neck, reveled in the hard-hitting drops that fell chaotically over her naked body as the automatic, hard pump of her heart pushed it through gaping veins and arteries and fountained it up in glittering scarlet spurts through the rank air. She fed on the raw flesh of her conquest, bent over her thrashing, dying body until it struggled no more, then devoured the softest, choicest sweetmeats until the body turned cold and the mattress beneath them squelched under every shift of Bo’s hands and knees, and all that was left was tough, stringy muscle and red-dyed bone, and Lover’s blood-stained, but otherwise undefiled dead body lying peacefully next to her.

Only when she had sated the last of her carnal appetites did she finally raise her head and sniff at the tangy, coppery air. The sound of sirens blared in the street below the window, voices shouted at the apartment door, and fists slammed against the sturdy wood. Bo shifted on the bed again, a growl rumbled low in her throat, and her eyes blazed a screaming, freezing, unrepentant blue.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

**Bo’s silent scream howled in the darkness around her, shivered in the empty air and thundered across her skin. It tore through her lungs and reverberated deep in her gut, and when Bo’s lungs collapsed for lack of air, she sucked in another empty, freezing breath and screamed again. She could feel the blood that she’d bathed in, warm and sticky and steaming in the frigid nothingness that surrounded her, she felt filthy with it, soiled in it. It dripped through her hair, trickled through her scalp, clogged her throat and twisted in her gut and she hurled scream after horrified scream into the blackness that swallowed her, and remained untorn by any sound. Her skin crawled, like insects had swept through the darkness while she dreamed and marched over every inch of her, and then hooked their jaws into her flesh and drained her body dry of everything she’d ever been.**

**Finally, she was spent, and her shrieks of rage and horror and disgust died into dry hacks and heaves. Her insides twisted with her torment, shifted so that they tied and knotted and wrung themselves in the attempt to expel anything inside, to escape the filthy, evil creature that held them. Bo writhed in the darkness, sobbing uncontrollably, unable to breathe for lack of air. And her skin still scorched, still felt hot and close and sticky with the blood she’d felt herself rend from Prey’s (Nadia’s?) body.**

**The cold she’d tried so hard to shield herself from before, she begged and ached for now, anything to cleanse herself of the heat of rushing blood and passionate sex. She scraped her arms and legs with her hands, and found herself drowning in a sea of blood, and the black nothingness that swirled cruelly around her tinted a deep, vicious red. Instead of the shrill, ragged screams she’d torn from her throat, all she heard was the wet squish of thick blood soaked into sheets and pillows, and sticky warmth that seeped through her fingers and marked her irrevocably as the filthiest, most abominable of monsters.**

**She had devolved. The Bo she had been was gone, replaced by this cold, unfeeling monster, driven into the throes of passion by pure, unadulterated instinct and a cruel, broken heart. It had ripped across her, a process begun in the first moment she’d fed from Kyle when she’d only been sixteen and sustained through every feed she’d ever taken since. It sent ripples and jolts of electricity that arched across every nerve and stiffened her fingers and toes and numbed her mind with its torturous agony. Bo had not been strong enough to carry the weight of her guilt, and it had destroyed her, and in the ashes of her broken, burned soul, a demon had arisen.**

**Another cry tore from Bo’s throat, piercing and sharp at first, but fell into a gurgling, broken sob. She’d failed. Lover’s (Lauren’s?) body lay cold beside her, stained crimson in the aftermath of Bo’s carnage, obscenely peaceful and smiling still in oblivious, endless slumber.**

**The darkness could take it all away. It would be so much easier to stop caring, to stop looking, to hide behind the blackness that cried and clung to her with its grubby fingers like a child. But that was what had brought her there to begin with, wasn’t it? Slowly, haltingly, Bo struggled to regain herself, to look closer at the images and memories that battered her unrepentantly. She focused on the details, stained red, to find anything, any discrepancy that could prove it all wrong, that could redeem her, bring her back from the brink upon which she found herself. Anything, any reason to keep fighting, to keep struggling to return to herself. Everything slipped and slid through her blood-soaked fingers, and she couldn’t focus. Blood drained down her throat, still pulsing from the strength of the heart that refused to stop pumping, and clogged her lungs and made her chest burn for lack of air.**

**Nadia was dead. Bo had never slept with her.**

**A sliver of truth solidified slowly in the broken, bleeding dregs of Bo’s mind. Nadia was dead. Nadia had been dead for over a year now. Bo had never slept with her, had never even gotten close. She had struggled to bring Nadia back to Lauren, and when the Garuda forced her hand, she had killed Nadia to save her. For Trick, for Kenzi, for Dyson and for Lauren, Bo focused on that one, single truth. Nadia had died, with her blood dripping from Bo’s dagger, from Bo’s fingers. But not from Bo’s mouth. The air had been thick with the scent of oranges when Nadia died – not with sex, and not with blood. And the cold, empty blackness pressed around her again, cloying still with the sickly sweet smell of blood still seeping through the air. Nadia was dead, and it was for Lauren’s sake that she’d died.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you unwilling to read the graphic violence of the chapter, here’s a short summary (up to but not including bold text): 
> 
> We start with Bo still in bed, lying with Lover and Prey. They are both kissing her ardently, and Bo feels another kind of hunger gnaw at her. With Prey’s fingers working in Bo, Bo’s fingers in Lover, and Lover’s fingers in Prey, the threesome begin their menage-a-trois. Midway through, Bo begins to feed on Lover, they all climax together, and Bo Succu-drains Lover to death.
> 
> With two hungers sated, a third makes itself known. All this sex and debauchery has made Bo physically hungry. She turns her attention to Prey, raising them both into a tangled sitting position in bed. Using her Succubus whammy, she keeps Prey calm, then bites through her lower lip… and eats it. Prey seems to react initially with fear and pain, but Bo’s Succu-whammy works to keep her aroused and (somehow) wanting more. Bo asks Prey if she wants her to stop, and Prey answers, shuddering and sobbing, ‘no’. With an eerie smile, Bo leans in as if to kiss Prey’s neck and tears her throat out instead. Bo feeds off Prey, quite literally eating her flesh while Prey’s dying body convulses beneath her.
> 
> By the time Bo raises her head from feasting, the sound of sirens cuts the air, Bo has eaten her fill, is drenched in blood, and her eyes are flashing a brilliant blue. She has devolved, and become the UnderFae creature she’d once seen in the Weaver’s spindle.


	17. Chapter 17

When Bo finally checked her voicemail, there were three messages, each one sounding more panicked than the last. The fear in that trembling voice… and the way she’d found Kenzi, with a towel stained red pressed tightly to her head, and worries of her own, worries that echoed and resonated and grew within Bo…

The little yellow Camaro zipped through empty streets, washed in lamplight and the sickly yellow glow of the full moon, shining half-heartedly between clouds as thin and ghastly as smoke. Kenzi was okay, Bo breathed another heavy, grateful sigh for that. She’d have a bad headache for at least a few hours, but Kenzi had survived the sudden attack. But Lauren had left her three panicked messages, and the same name that had once brought nothing but hurt and resentment, and now carried a hint of anger and fear, had come through those garbled, frightened messages loud and clear: Nadia.

Something was wrong with Nadia.

Bo raced through the slick, empty streets, the sound of her car’s engine a dull roar and her heart beating like a hammer in her chest. Her lips felt numb, her feet were like lead and her hands shook if she loosened them from the steering wheel. How long had it been since Lauren had left her that last message? Since Nadia had arrived back at her apartment? 

And though Bo wouldn’t say she knew what had happened to turn Nadia so suddenly hostile and violent, she would be lying if she said she didn’t have a niggling, itching idea. It wouldn’t be such a foray into fantasy: the Garuda had been affecting much of the Fae population already. She had seen the maps in Trick’s lair. His hatred and penchant for blood had been infecting everyone and everything around him. What if he had discovered how close Nadia was to the human acquainted with so much of the Light’s intelligence?

And images of Lauren, frightened, dying, bloodied and battered at the hands of the woman that Bo had helped her save, kept flooding her, stealing the air from her lungs and making the tips of her fingers tingle and itch.

She swerved into a parking spot, unmindful of the stench of burnt rubber that rose through the night air and slammed the door shut behind her. Her dagger in its sheath pressed reassuringly against her thigh, and the heels of her black leather boots snapped in a steady, sharp rhythm against the smooth stone floors of Lauren’s apartment building. She took the stairs two by two with nothing but the image of Nadia’s neck pressed beneath the cold edge of her knife, and the answers she was determined to get from her, running like a broken record in her mind.

Then she burst through the door, her nerves edged in steel and the hilt of her blade between her fingertips, and Nadia’s name exploding from her in accusation and betrayal and anger…

“What are you doing here?” Nadia jumped from the couch like it had burned her, and her dark face was cold and empty. Her eyes were red-rimmed, swollen, like she’d been crying, but her mouth was too relaxed and her posture too defensive. Lauren was between them in an instant.

“What were you doing at my place?” Bo spat right back, “Why did you attack Kenzi?”

Lauren’s expression flipped instantly from bafflement to horror.

“What?!” It was a cry, hidden and silenced by a whisper. Nadia looked from Lauren to Bo, her eyes never settling for too long on either and her weight shifting from foot to foot nervously. “What did you do?” Lauren’s voice rose a little louder, but it was still tight and constricted with unease and fear.

Nadia hesitated, and finally her eyes settled on Lauren, “I - … I don’t remember…” she reached for Lauren, but the expression in those eyes, the lack of confusion, of fear, made Bo’s blood turn cold. Nadia pulled Lauren closer to her, between herself and the Succubus who was finally beginning to put the pieces slowly together, “Baby, please,” her voice was emotionless, “tell Bo to leave so we can talk.”

The way Nadia held Lauren between them sent a tremor of panic rippling down Bo’s spine – like a terrorist, holding an innocent bystander hostage. But Lauren shifted away subtly, whether out of discomfort or only to better see the tension that ran between Nadia and Bo like a live wire.

“I’m not leaving until I find out what the hell is going on,” Bo’s voice was a low hiss, she stepped in quickly, closer to Nadia, closer to Lauren, but not close enough.

Nadia’s face twisted into something almost inhuman, she grappled Lauren and bodily threw her away, and Bo’s knife was instantly in her hands, a cold, burning extension of her fingers that slid out of its sheath with an angry hiss and found the resting spot it ached and yearned for, pressed against the wildly throbbing artery in Nadia’s neck. Lauren collapsed against the wall with a grunt and slid to the floor, and Bo could only spare a glance to see that Lauren, though shocked and frightened, was alright.

“You wanna pick on someone your own size? Huh?” Though Bo’s voice was soft, there was a cold hardness to it, a subtle indication of the fury that showed plainly in the tight lines of her mouth and the flare of her nostrils. She pressed the edge of her knife a little harder to Nadia’s throat, and Nadia’s chin rose a little, and she took a small step backward to avoid the sharp sting of steel breaking skin.

“Bo,” Lauren was on her feet in an instant, her words were saturated in panic, “Bo, what are you doing – “

“I am getting answers!” Bo’s voice finally rose to a shout, it wasn’t enough to drown out the sound of hot blood rushing in her ears.

“Lauren please,” Nadia’s voice was scared now, “tell Bo to put the knife down and we can all talk!”

“Don’t listen to her Lauren, it is a trick,” Bo hissed back, undeterred by the fear that suddenly ran through the dark brown eyes she held with her own, or the panic that flashed across its dark face.

“No no no, Bo, she’s sick,” Lauren held her hands out and edged closer slowly, her voice growing more and more panicked, more frightened, with every word, “you’re scaring her, please, put the knife down, Bo, please!”

It was the terror and panic in Lauren’s face, the tremble of her hands, the final softly, brokenly whispered ‘please’ that finally got through to Bo. Her own hands trembled with the adrenaline that flooded her system and electrified her nerves, and her breath came in shallow pants with the effort to subdue it, to calm herself. Slowly, she lowered the knife, its edge whispered against Nadia’s skin, unsatisfied by the unfulfilled promise of blood wetting its glittering surface.

This wasn’t right. Doubt wormed in Bo’s gut, this wasn’t right. But she slipped the knife back in its sheath anyway, and for a moment after her fingers fell from its hilt, the room took and held its breath. Then Nadia’s frightened expression flipped again into something monstrous, and hands that were too strong to be completely human grasped Bo’s arms in a hard vise-grip and Nadia threw Bo with all her weight into the kitchen counter. Fruit scattered from an iron bowl and bounced around Bo across the floor, and Bo’s head throbbed where it had slammed against cold marble. The smell of oranges, bruised and broken, swarmed in a cloud around her.

“You stay out of this,” Nadia’s whisper came through clenched teeth. Bo was on her hands and knees, she shook her head to clear the black stars that swam across her vision, and when she looked up, Nadia’s hand was around Lauren’s throat, and the dark-skinned woman had her victim pressed against the wall.

“Nadia, it’s me, Lauren,” Lauren’s words were choked through tears and the fingers that bruised the tender muscles of her throat, “fight it, sweetie, fight it.” Lauren’s fingers closed around Nadia’s wrist, she was staring straight into Nadia’s eyes with such pain and sadness, it gave Bo the strength to pull herself to her feet and stand.

And then Nadia’s shoulders shook, and the hand she held so tightly around Lauren’s throat slackened, and Bo heard the fear and bewilderment in Nadia’s voice, “Lauren?” she whispered shakily.

This wasn’t right. But not for the reasons Bo had assumed.

“Please help me,” Nadia’s shoulders were shaking, her voice was broken by anguish and choked with tears, “there’s something inside of me, I can feel its hatred, it wants to kill – “

Nadia’s hands were in Lauren’s, her voice a shrill, strangled cry, and Bo knew that this wasn’t right. This wasn’t right in any sense of the word. And then Nadia gave a high, guttural scream and doubled over, and Bo wished she weren’t here to see this, to be a part of this. Lauren held Nadia close, she looked over her lover’s bent form at Bo with such despair, and Bo knew, understood, exactly what had happened to Nadia.

“The Garuda,” she offered, her mouth stretched and tight with sympathy and sudden unhappy understanding. The Garuda was inside her, invading her, stealing her body and her senses. It was destroying her.

“The pain,” Nadia was screaming, “it’s too much!” She was gasping like a woman in labor. Bo’s heart slammed against her ribcage, like a wild animal thrashing against its bars to be let out of its prison. “You gotta stop it,” Nadia gasped, sucked in a breath, “while you still can,” she struggled against Lauren, her fingers tearing now at Lauren’s arm, trying desperately to hold on to her, to force her to understand too, “please!”

Lauren was crying, and between the desperate, heart-breaking sound of Lauren’s refusals, of Nadia’s cries of pain, Bo felt her breath quicken again in her lungs, felt her hands and feet grow numb. Her ears buzzed and her stomach clenched and her hair was hot and sticky against the back of her neck.

“I don’t know what to do,” Lauren was crying in a choked gasp.

“Kill me,” Nadia ground out, “now,” and to Bo they were short, sharp sounds she could hear clearly, could understand the semantics of on the basest level, but could not believe.

“No,” Lauren’s head shook, her voice a warm, low gust of air through a violent storm, “I can’t, I can’t do that.”

“Bo!”

Until then, Nadia’s back was turned to her, and she was spared the anguish that twisted her face. But with that sharp, begging cry, she turned, and Bo could finally see the torment that tore at her features. 

“Please!”

And Lauren’s eyes, sad, scared, uncomprehending, were on her too now. Her mouth downturned at the edges, her face ashen.

“Oh, please! Do it! Make it go away!”

The tip of Bo’s nose was cold. The sweet, citrusy smell of oranges still wafted in the air, dense and burning with the cries of anguish that tore at it and struggled against it.

“Bo, do it.”

Tangled with the screams that tore from the writhing figure that was still Nadia was Lauren’s low, quiet voice, and even softly spoken, Bo could hear her words clearly. They buried themselves like little knives deep in her chest, broke through and snared into her still beating, thudding heart.

“Do it for her, do it for me. Just do it.”

And then Bo’s voice joined the maelstrom of anguished cries, “I can’t, I can’t!”

And they built into a snarling, spitting, rabid chorus of demands and refusals, until Nadia broke and threw herself at Lauren. 

Panic shot through Bo, a sudden crash that took her from frozen fear into breathless, mindless reaction. She would never remember how the knife at her thigh wound up in her hand, or how she’d snatched Nadia’s shoulder and spun her around. But she would never forget the way it slid seamlessly through skin and muscle, or the sudden rush of warmth that broke through fabric and enveloped her fingers. She would never forget the hot breath that washed her face, or the dark eyes that fell to meet hers, shocked, and confused.

And the moments after that slipped past in a barrage of emotions. Nadia stepped back, stared down at the hand that ended in a hilt, buried deep in her belly, and thanked her in a harsh whisper that sounded alien to Bo’s ears. Lauren leapt forward, taking Nadia into her arms and lowered her slowly to the ground. Lauren’s long, golden hair pooled on the floor, mingled with Nadia’s frizzy brown curls. The smell of blood now, sharp and biting, was sweetened by the fresh scent of bruised and bleeding oranges.

And Bo knew little else what happened after that. She was a whirlwind of horror and panic. She was numb. She stepped away, around the women lying on the hard floor of Lauren’s apartment, away from the blood that spread in a cloud around Nadia’s waist, staining her white cotton shirt scarlet. 

She turned once before running out the door, stared at the woman she loved, kneeling on the ground next to her lover, her body wracked with sobs and her voice begging, pleading, for Nadia to stay with her. Nadia’s blood dripped from her knife to the floor. Bo would never be able to clean it off completely. But the thought of cleaning it off never even occurred to her.

And with her mind numb and her nerves buzzing and screaming and her heart frozen, finally still and silent in her tired, aching chest, Bo turned and left.

This wasn’t right. It wasn’t right at all.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

_It was already late by the time Bo left the Dal and her grandfather. The sun had set hours ago, and the black night sky was empty of clouds. Only stars studded its high, vaulted expanse, and the moon was a thin sliver that shone weakly among the bruised purple swaying treetops. The air was crisp and cool, but the asphalt beneath her tires was still warm from the spring sun’s mild heat. Music mumbled vaguely from her car’s radio, incoherent, but still melodic, and Bo hummed along with it. Tonight was the night she would see Lauren, would make things right. Bo would stop being a coward. She would show Lauren how much she meant to her, shower her in the love she felt for her, the love she deserved. Bo needed Lauren, she needed her lover, her girlfriend, by her side. And she missed her, so much._

_It had been days since she’d seen Lauren. Bo had been busy preparing for her Dawning, and Lauren had needed time to heal from their ordeal only a few days ago at Bo’s father’s home. They hadn’t been avoiding each other, per se, but Bo wanted to give Lauren the time she needed to cope with her injuries and to deal with the events that had transpired, to forgive Bo for her monstrous, abusive treatment of the woman she loved._

_And Bo was scared. There was a tension between them that hadn’t existed before, an elephant in the room that always stared straight at her whenever they were together, accusatory, condemnatory, disappointed. So she allowed Lauren to make her excuses, and she made as many of her own, to grant Lauren the space she needed. She went home first. She showered, dressed up, dressed down again and swallowed mouthfuls of burning liquid courage._

_But now, she was here, ready and aching to bridge the gap between them. So she hopped out of the car, still humming softly, errantly, along with the last song to play on the station. She hummed because she was nervous, and excited, and terrified, and it helped to sooth her nerves and ease her mind._

_When she got up to Lauren’s apartment, the new door was shut, but not locked. She turned the knob easily and slipped inside. The lights were all off, silence reigned, and the subtle glow of midnight hung like a mist over solitary furniture and tables and rugs. Bo stood still for a moment before quietly shutting the door behind her, and allowed her eyes to adjust to the dimness, her heart and mind picking up speed and an incessant chatter of nerves stumbling and rushing under her skin. She draped her jacket over the couch and crept through the apartment, climbed the steps slowly, with her hand on the banister to help keep her balance and silence, and breathed as softly as she could._

_Lauren’s bedroom was dark. The curtains were drawn, so that not even the moon’s waning light could creep in, and Bo had to stand at the room’s threshold to allow her eyes to adjust to the pitch dark all over again. After a quiet, breath-held moment, Bo could make out the soft lines of a smooth bare arm, the spun gold of hair, and Bo slipped her boots off and padded inside._

_Her heart was in her throat now, but she slid her hand across the sheets at the foot of the bed and crept along the side until she felt Lauren’s warm, steady breath flare across her skin. The comforter rustled when she lifted it, and Lauren shifted to lie on her back. It gave Bo the space she needed to slip under the covers beside her._

_She burrowed a leg between both of Lauren’s and wound her arm around Lauren’s waist, and was instantly gratified by a slender, muscled arm sliding over her hip and up her back. Fingers tangled in Bo’s hair and Lauren’s nose, just a little cold at the tip, brushed against her cheek._

_“Bo?” Lauren’s voice was so sleepy, so soft, it was more rush of air than a whisper. And it was as if no time had passed since the last time Bo had lain in Lauren’s bed, in her arms, happy and assured. Bo smiled, though her lips trembled, and brushed a delicate kiss to her lover’s lips._

_“Yeah, babe. I’m here,” she answered softly._

_Eyelashes fluttered against Bo’s skin, and an exhale of breath rushed against her cheeks and mouth and chin, and then Lauren was pressing herself closer, and she sealed her lips to Bo’s in a kiss that stole the breath from Bo’s lungs and made her light-headed and dizzy._

_A wave of affection rolled and crashed over Bo. Love for the woman in her arms swelled like a tide and Bo tightened her arm around Lauren and rolled them both so that Lauren lay on her back and stared up at her through sleep-hooded eyes, and Bo’s hair cascaded to the pillow to mingle with the halo of soft yellow locks. Her hips pressed against Lauren’s, their legs tangled under the sheets, and with another soft, whimpering exhale of breath, Bo leaned down to capture Lauren’s mouth with her own. Both of Lauren’s arms wrapped tightly around Bo, and Bo couldn’t hold Lauren close enough, couldn’t kiss her deeply enough, couldn’t express enough with her touch, with her lips, with her eyes or the desperate pressure of her body against Lauren’s, how much she loved her, needed her, appreciated her._

_Lauren’s hands slipped under Bo’s black cotton tank top, and the sensation of skin on skin sent Bo reeling and her nerves screaming with pleasure. Lauren pulled it up over Bo’s head, breaking her lips from Bo’s only long enough to tear the fabric away from them both, and heat and need throbbed between Bo’s thighs, desperate and aching and urgent. Nails scraped along Bo’s spine, sending a shiver of arousal rippling across Bo’s skin, and Lauren’s hands trailed down to Bo’s hips, slid to the button of Bo’s leather pants and popped it easily, dexterously. When Bo shimmied out of them, Lauren arched her back and let loose a groan that set fire to Bo’s skin and brought a fresh sense of urgency to the hard kisses she pressed to Lauren’s jaw. Wet heat trickled down the inside of Bo’s thigh and dampened the cotton pajama pants Lauren still wore. Bo panted, nipped the soft, flushing skin of Lauren’s neck, and was rewarded with another low, growling groan of arousal. It was her name, drawn out, given texture and vibrancy and depth, and Bo wanted to hear Lauren say it like that again, and again, and again._

_The bed creaked softly under their weight, and Lauren squirmed to pull herself up and over. She straddled Bo, and Bo could see from the glint in Lauren’s eyes that she was no longer sleepy. Lauren straightened over her, pulled her own top over her head, then leaned down to touch her lips to the soft skin behind Bo’s ear. Warm breath tickled its shell, a delicate tongue flitted at her earlobe, and Lauren’s hair, thick and soft and warm, lay in a velvet blanket across Bo’s face. And with Lauren’s pebbled nipples pressed against Bo’s breasts, and Bo’s fingertips trailing along hot, flushed skin and her arms full of Lauren’s writhing, firm form, Bo felt her chest tighten and her heart expand and uttered a low, guttural groan of her own. She slipped her hands under the elastic waistband of Lauren’s pants and cupped the curves of Lauren’s ass and raised her hips to press them harder against Lauren’s own. She buried her face in the warm contours of Lauren’s neck and basked in the feather-light, teasing kisses Lauren trailed across her shoulder, then pushed down the final barrier between Lauren’s glorious, sensual nakedness and her own. They both kicked off the sheets with Lauren’s bottoms and panties, and then writhed to entangle themselves deeper within each other on the whispering cotton sheets they lay on._

_For a little while they only held each other close, teased each other with teeth and tongues and lips, with caresses that crept and hovered and thighs that rubbed and wound around each other. Heat throbbed in every nerve ending, electricity arced over bare skin and the air was thick with the scent of their shared arousal and the crackling, buzzing energy of their lovemaking. The space between Bo’s thighs was slick and dripping and hot, and when she rolled on top of Lauren and ground her thigh into Lauren’s hips, their wet heat mingled and it made Lauren cry out with rapture, made her back arch and her hips buck with arousal. And when Lauren squirmed her way on top of Bo and tightened her thighs over Bo’s own and writhed so that her hot, wet sex spread across smooth, pale skin, Bo’s breath hitched in her throat, and her fingers tightened in Lauren’s hair and she moaned back in reply._

_Bo threw her leg over Lauren’s, trapping Lauren between her thighs, and buried her face in the dip between Lauren’s breasts. Lauren was panting heavily, her breath, tingling with the fading flavor of peppermint toothpaste, brushed against Bo’s hair, and Bo trailed her mouth along the curve of Lauren’s breast until her lips found the nipple and closed over it. Lauren’s fingers dug into Bo’s scalp, and she breathed Bo’s name again, her voice gruff, low, heavy with want. Bo suckled the nipple, pinched it between her teeth, tasted the thin film of sweat that dampened her lover’s skin, and her fingers fell to Lauren’s hips and wandered, slowly, deliberately, into the crevice between her skin and Lauren’s sex. She lifted her head in time to smile into the gasp Lauren gave in response, and they both crashed into the pillows beneath them._

_“Bo,” Lauren’s voice was a rough, gasping growl. Bo only had time to slide her fingers once between slippery wet lips before Lauren’s hand found them. Their fingers locked together, Lauren pressed her whole, delicious, naked body against Bo’s and pulled their hands up together around Bo’s head. Bo’s heart was pounding, her lips were on fire, her skin screaming and her lungs breathless, and with their fingers entwined and their bodies pressed so close together Bo didn’t know where she ended and Lauren began, they started to rock against each other. Bo was hot and wet, pressed tightly against Lauren’s thigh, and Lauren dripped, scalding, sticky, delicious, down the inside of Bo’s leg. Lauren’s lips, swollen, red, glistening, even in the darkness of the bedroom, pressed against Bo’s. Her tongue skimmed across Bo’s teeth, and Bo drew it in with her own._

_They rose together, a winding column of heat and want, molten and melting into each other. Their rhythm quickened, Bo’s breath came in sharp, hurried gasps that flared across Lauren’s cheeks, whose breath skimmed erratically along the side of Bo’s face. She felt raw, throbbing, a bundle of screaming nerves, and she moaned into Lauren’s mouth even while Lauren whimpered into hers. Still, they climbed together, their fingers clenched together, their arching, bucking bodies greedy for more skin, dripping with sweat and arousal. The bed creaked under them, the wooden knobs knocked a steady beat against the wall. Lauren cried Bo’s name into their kisses over, and over, and over, in that low, growling groan that set Bo’s skin on fire and erased all thought from her mind but one: ‘Yes’._

_And then their writhing bodies started to slam irregularly into each other, and the creak of the bed was lost to the groans of ecstasy that broke their long kiss into a series of shorter, sharper nips and gasps. Bo’s skin tingled, her arms struggled above her head, her fingers still tight around Lauren’s own but also straining against the desperate, aching need to wrap them tightly around Lauren’s form. Her thighs clenched, and she was soaked hip to knee in Lauren’s hot ecstasy, and fireworks exploded from the pit of her belly and raced along her spine and up and down her torso. And with a cry that echoed in Lauren’s throat, they both shot to the dizzying peak and released their shared climax with high, panting cries of gratification._

_And they fell together, a long, breathless drop. Lauren collapsed over Bo, trembling with the force of her orgasm, her breath coming in shallow, erratic pants. Bo’s fingers slid out of Lauren’s tight grasp, she wound her arms around her lover and held her tight, held her close. They lay tangled in one another’s arms, both of them shuddering, gasping, speechless, drenched in sweaty satisfaction and the exertion of their lovemaking._

_Bo would never regain her breath. She pressed her lips to the curve of Lauren’s neck and knew that as long as Lauren was hers, as long as Lauren loved her, kissed her, touched her, looked at her, Bo would always be breathless. She smiled into Lauren’s hair, sated and safe, and breathed in the saltiness of Lauren’s skin, the headiness of their lovemaking, and smelled the sweet honey scent that Lauren exuded like a glow._

_“I love you,” Lauren’s words were a whisper in Bo’s hair, muffled and thick. Bo’s eyes fluttered closed with the completeness of her bliss. She pressed a long, lingering kiss to the still wildly throbbing heartbeat that pulsed in Lauren’s neck._

_“I love you, too,” Bo mumbled softly. Her mouth still felt clumsy, her muscles still not her own and still convulsing erratically with the force of her orgasm. “I love you so much,” the words were tumbling out of her now, involuntary, intense, choked with the tears Bo hadn’t felt welling in her eyes and clogging her throat until it was too late._

_Lauren pulled away from Bo, and the air between them felt freezing and lonely against Bo’s sweat-slicked skin. And through the blanket of impenetrable darkness, Bo could see the subtle glow of Lauren’s tawny eyes settle on her, could see the subtle tremor of her lips. Tears glittered at the corners of Lauren’s eyes, and she sniffled into the blackness between them._

_“I know,” Lauren’s words were thick with the tears that slipped down her dimly glowing cheeks. Bo pressed in to kiss them away, desperate to stop Lauren from crying._

_She had done so much to hurt her. She had put those tears in her eyes, and brought the anguish that lined her face, the doubt and fear and pain that constricted her voice and made her tremble in Bo’s arms. And Bo wished she could take it all way, could erase the horrible things she’d said and done to break her lover’s heart. Her chest tightened again, and her arms squeezed reactively around Lauren’s slender body, and she cried quietly into Lauren’s thick, warm, sweet-smelling hair, “I’m so sorry, Lauren. I’m so sorry.” And Bo held her, and kissed her hair and whispered ‘I love you’s into Lauren’s skin until Lauren’s breathing steadied and her tears dried and she fell into a deep, exhausted slumber._

 


	18. Chapter 18

It had been a couple of hours since Isabeau had awoken her first, lovely Thralls. And they had proven to be quite the entertaining distraction. She enjoyed the way they lusted after her, took pleasure in teasing them, in taking little sips of their Chi and raising their arousal until, wide-eyed and panting, they almost lost complete control, and then breaking away from them and watching composedly, wickedly, while they struggled to take her back into their arms and make passionate love to her.

It was fun.

But the woman in the dungeon beckoned. Called to her. And the way her name fell from her lips, round, monosyllabic, throaty, sent a thrill down Isabeau’s spine that neither Inari, Dolph, nor Duncan had been able to awaken. So she slipped down the stone steps behind the curtained wall in her father’s ballroom and edged through the heavy door that separated the rest of the house from the dank, fetid prison. Her nose wrinkled briefly at the disgusting smell that enveloped her immediately. She didn’t know how everyone else seemed so easily able to ignore it, but the pungent odors of death and decay irritated her to no end.

But this was where Lauren was, and this was where she would stay. She would be far too dangerous allowed to roam free, allowed the opportunity to reach out suddenly and touch her, to kiss her, to awaken the dormant woman inside her that had become too ashamed and cowardly to fight for dominance.

There was one thing the old ‘Bo’ and herself shared in common, however. An absolute, breathless fascination for the slender, blond-haired creature that struggled to recover from her concussion down below. Isabeau’s footsteps echoed across the damp stone walls of the dungeon, she strolled carelessly over to Lauren’s cell and stood, hips cocked and her arms crossed over her chest, just outside of arm’s reach of the bars. She would not risk a sudden, physical encounter with the doctor, but she loved to watch her move, to hear her speak, to study the soft lines of her body, the rich gold of her hair, the glimmer of her eyes when they swelled with tears.

Lauren lay curled in a corner of her cell, looking disheveled and dirty. A small pool of vomit lay stagnant and still steaming a few feet away from the injured woman, but Lauren was silent and still. Isabeau took her time trailing her eyes along the curve of Lauren’s shoulders. She roamed the graceful arch of her arms poised across her knees, studied the dull shine of hair that had begun to tangle and mat with sweat and filth. Isabeau licked her lips, considered making her presence known, and then changed her mind. She loved to hear the human’s voice, but the quiet, insistent one-sided conversation Lauren insisted on having with her made her antsy, made her stomach churn with what the old ‘Bo’ would have recognized as fear and anxiety.

After a few moments, Lauren finally stirred. She scrubbed her face with her hands and groaned into her palms, a long, dry-throated expression of pain and exhaustion. And then Lauren lifted her face and fixed Isabeau with a tired, sad stare.

“Bo,” she whispered hoarsely into the cold, rank air that hung between them. Isabeau’s breath hitched, and her lips twitched into a smile that was both cruel, but also pleased. Lauren’s voice had a way of crawling under her skin and warming the hollow parts of her.

A thin, unhappy smile trembled across Lauren’s mouth, perhaps a response to the one that widened ever so slightly on Isabeau’s lips, perhaps in reaction to some sweet memory the beautiful, beaten woman recalled. One hand rose to rub the back of her neck and came back dotted with flecks of blood that hadn’t quite dried up yet, but Lauren never broke eye contact with the Succubus.

“Do you remember when the Lich tried to make you feed off me?” Lauren’s voice was soft, her words a little mumbled, almost incoherent, with the numbness of lips made uncoordinated by her concussion. But they carried across the wide, cold space between them. Isabeau struggled a little to contain the stirrings of her humanity, and refused to allow herself to remember, to even understand the words that Lauren spoke. She focused only on the richness of Lauren’s voice, the cadence and rhythm with which she spoke.

“You sucked the Chi out of an entire roomful of people,” Lauren continued, “I was so scared,” her voice broke a little, Isabeau’s heavy lidded, unnaturally blue eyes fluttered with the shiver that ran down her back. “You were blue-eyed, fierce… beautiful,” Lauren paused, drew a breath, and despite herself, Isabeau was completely riveted by Lauren’s retelling. “You were almost god-like. It was terrifying, captivating, and breath-taking.”

Silence stretched again between them. Lauren seemed to be considering her next words carefully. Isabeau stared in absolute fascination at the beaten, broken human, who, despite the rough treatment she’d received from Isabeau, kept trying, relentlessly to bring her back to her old self. Lauren struggled to stand, leaned heavily against the rough stone wall for support, and faltered on her feet a little. She edged a little closer, her hand trailing along hard stone and her ocher eyes fixed on Isabeau’s and glittering in the flickering torchlight, like dim embers waiting to relight.

“Do you remember that day, Bo?” Lauren’s voice was raspy, rough with thirst and the sharp sting of the acid the vomit had brought up with it. Isabeau’s eyebrows knit into a frown, her cruel smile faltered, and she almost leaned in closer to the bars that separated them from each other. Lauren licked her lips and shuffled a little closer. “Do you remember how you did it? _Why_ you did it?”

The human stopped less than a foot from the bars of her cage, and Isabeau could see the redness that rimmed her eyes, puffed and swollen from crying. Faded tear tracks trailed down her cheeks, a little paler and cleaner than the rest of her grimy skin. “It was because of the way we feel about each other,” Lauren licked her lips again, Isabeau could see how nervous she was, how frightened, in the tremble of her fingers, of her chin. “Try, honey,” she begged, her voice a ragged breath that lingered in the cold, stagnant air between them, “try to remember. Please, Bo. I need you.”

Isabeau opened her mouth to speak, uncertain now, her heart in her throat and her stomach clenched with the unease that threated to ruin her equilibrium and the stirrings of the woman that stretched and reached for Lauren, leaning heavily against the wall, mere feet away. And then footsteps echoed across the stone walls, soft and pattering, and a voice, high and light, chased those echoes down the dank, dark hallway to Isabeau’s ears, “Oh Bestie… where are you?”

Inari was calling for her in a sing-song voice, and the tiny red-headed Kitsune skipped from the half-open doorway to Isabeau’s side, quick as a flash. Thin fingers settled on Isabeau’s arms, and the sympathy and love that had begun to awaken deep in Isabeau’s frozen heart fell away and a grin, cold and cruel, spread again across Isabeau’s face. Lauren watched, dismayed, while Inari pressed close to Isabeau and the Succubus wrapped an arm tightly around the Fox-Fae’s waist. A warm mouth brushed against Isabeau’s throat, and Isabeau hummed the arousal that flared suddenly and flushed her paling skin.

“Hello, Mistress,” Inari’s lips moved sensuously, her breath wafted, warm and still smelling of blackberries, now with a hint of rich milk chocolate, and Isabeau turned her head and dipped it to kiss Inari’s lips and taste those sweet, tempting flavors.

“Hello, Lover,” Isabeau murmured in reply, her attention split between the Thrall that pressed herself against her side and the woman that shuddered and choked back tears only a few feet away. Excitement skittered across Isabeau’s skin, raised simultaneously by the cruel enjoyment of watching Lauren’s heart break and seeing so clearly the power of Lauren’s bare emotions. Seeing Lauren like that, raw, hurting, aching for her, was thrilling, intoxicating, and a little disturbing. And Isabeau loved it.

“Let me try to remember the way we feel about each other,” Isabeau drawled mockingly. She grinned, and her eyes flashed an Arctic, freezing blue, at the way Lauren’s chest seemed to deflate and her expression fell into one of absolute misery. Isabeau drew Inari closer to her, wrapped both arms loosely around the petite creature that hummed with pleasure and buried her face into the curve of Isabeau’s neck. “Tell me, Lauren. Was it anything like this?” Isabeau flashed another cold, ruthless smile at Lauren, then turned her face to nuzzle the soft spot behind Inari’s ear. Inari’s breath was a warm, soft caress across her skin, it sharpened with the quick, harsh gasp she released and then the Kitsune pulled back to press her mouth to Isabeau’s own. Her lips were soft, smooth, they massaged Isabeau’s until she ran her tongue across Inari’s teeth and plunged it into the hot cavern of Inari’s mouth when it opened invitingly for her.

When Isabeau finally pulled back, Lauren was crying quietly, and had slid down the rough stone wall back to the floor. She was curled into the fetal position, and her shoulders shook with the sobs that wracked her.

“Am I close, doctor?” Isabeau teased, ignoring momentarily the little nips Inari trailed across her jaw and down her neck, “Or do I need more passion? I can be more passionate, if that’s what you want.”

Lauren wasn’t watching, her face was hidden behind the questionable sanctuary of her bare arms, and Isabeau wanted to yank her head up by her hair to make her see, to observe herself the raw, painful emotions that scrawled in lines across her beautiful face.

“I’m talking to you!” Isabeau snapped, and Lauren’s head jumped up at the aggression that sharpened Isabeau’s voice, “Good. Now tell me if this is enough passion for you.” Lauren’s chin trembled, and for a moment, she looked like she might hide her eyes behind her arms again, rather than see her lover be intimate with another woman. But she held herself together, only just, and Isabeau smirked in satisfaction before turning her attention back to the mewling, devoted Thrall in her arms.

Inari lifted her face, and Isabeau met her with another brief, sensual kiss. The wild, tart flavor of blackberries, sweet around the edges, creamy smooth with just a hint of the chocolate on Inari’s breath, flooded Isabeau’s mouth, and she drank deeply from Inari’s Chi for a short, intense minute. A long, low moan rippled from Inari’s throat, her chest vibrated against Isabeau’s with that growling expression of arousal, and Isabeau couldn’t help the chuckle that fell from her lips when she broke away and dipped her head to nibble teasingly at Inari’s bare shoulder. She watched Lauren out of the corner of her eyes, curious to see if the human broke, fascinated by the wet tears that slid down her cheeks and dripped into the darkness below her chin.

  

 

* * *

 

 

 

_It had been so long since they’d done this. It had been so long since they’d even had the chance to spend a little alone time together. Ever since they found out about Bo’s Dawning, ever since they’d all come home, Bo had been neck-deep in training and Lauren had been completely lost in her research, trying desperately to find a way to make the Dawning easier for Bo, or possibly to avoid Bo’s devolution, in the never-suggested case that she might not succeed._

_But Bo’s Dawning was almost upon them. There was little left for Bo to do in preparation. She’d trained long and hard, had passed through the Threshold, received her invitation and put together its puzzle-pieces. Now, all that was left was the Ceremony itself, only a few days away._

_So Bo had taken the night off to spend a little quality time with Lauren. They’d needed it, desperately, and it was far too obvious by the tense conversation at dinner and the way Lauren seemed to tiptoe around Bo all night. Bo tried to tell herself it was just pre-Dawning jitters: that Lauren was frightened and worried that Bo would not make it through. But it was a lie. There was a rift growing steadily between them, whether caused by Bo’s own behavior before and after Lauren’s rescue at Jack O’Meara’s hands, or by the secret Bo sensed, in her deepest, most troubled heart of hearts that Lauren kept from her._

_“You know, this was a really good idea,” Bo smiled across the table at Lauren and reached a hand across to envelop Lauren’s with her own, “I’ve missed you.”_

_Lauren smiled back tightly. The expression in her eyes, flickering erratically a dark, somber brown and bright, burnished copper in the unsteady candle-light, was more tired than happy. “Me too,” Lauren’s voice was a low, soft murmur. She pulled her hand out from under Bo’s and stood suddenly to clear the table. Bo drew in a deep breath, a little taken aback by Lauren’s impersonal abruptness, and stood too._

_“Babe, forget the dishes,” Bo grabbed the empty plates from Lauren’s grasp, trying to make eye contact with the beautiful blonde across the table from her. Her heart was beginning to thud in her chest, and she felt anxious, worried. Lauren’s eyes wouldn’t rise to meet hers, they roamed over the room instead, settling on anything but the nervous stare her lover settled on her. “Please, Lauren, come sit with me.”_

_It took a moment, but Bo eventually succeeded in prying the plates from Lauren’s grasp and taking Lauren’s hand in hers. She pulled her gently to the long white couch that dominated most of Lauren’s living room. They sat together, side by side. Bo leaned back and threw her arm out over the top, an invitation for Lauren to lean in and curl up against her, but Lauren sat straight instead, stiff, tense and uncomfortable._

_“Lauren, honey, what’s wrong?” Bo straightened herself, and her heart was beginning to race. Something was definitely off, and she had to swallow her fear and cover Lauren’s hands, folded primly on her lap, with one of her own to ease it, “Talk to me.”_

_For a long, pregnant minute, they sat in silence. Bo stared across at Lauren, frightened, worried, her heart in her throat and her hands trembling slightly over both of Lauren’s. Lauren sat stock still, her gaze far away and her lips stretched into a tight, thin line. She was so beautiful, her golden hair glimmered in the flickering candle-light and her skin bathed in the soft, warm glow the candle’s flame exuded. Dinner had been a mostly casual affair, it was a last-minute plan they had patched together that afternoon, so Lauren was in one of her faded pink button-downs and jeans. But Bo knew that she could have been dressed in a potato sack and still been the most beautiful, sexy woman Bo had ever seen._

_Lauren’s hair cascaded over one shoulder, partly shielding her from Bo’s view. So Bo lifted her hand to brush her hair away. Her fingers lingered on the back of Lauren’s neck, but Lauren didn’t respond._

_“Lauren?” Bo’s voice was a soft, quiet whisper. She cupped Lauren’s cheek, brushed her thumb across a perfect cheekbone, and Lauren finally leaned in to the tender, intimate touch and kissed the palm of Bo’s hand. Her lips were a flutter of air against Bo’s skin. And then Lauren’s shoulders hunched, and she took in a deep, shaking breath and finally curled in to Bo’s arms and rested her head against Bo’s chest._

_“I’m sorry,” Lauren gulped audibly, Bo’s stomach churned at the fear and sadness that shook Lauren’s voice and tightened her hold around the woman in her arms. “I shouldn’t be stressing you out. You have a lot going on with your Dawning, I wanted tonight to be relaxing,” Lauren sighed. Bo felt the tension in her shoulders uncoil a little, she kissed the crown of Lauren’s head and relished the velvety warmth of Lauren’s hair against her lips._

_“It’s okay. I just wanted to be with you tonight, that’s all,” Bo’s words were muffled, but she knew Lauren understood her. “You’re not…” Bo hesitated, afraid to even broach the subject, “You’re not mad at me… Are you?”_

_Lauren shifted in her arms, as if startled by the question. She pulled herself up a little, and their eyes met, and Bo was completely taken by their beauty, so expressive and deep she wanted to just fall into them and drown._

_“Bo…” the tone of Lauren’s voice tore Bo away from her admiration, and her eyebrows knit into a snarled line and her mouth tightened into an anxious frown. Lauren straightened; in the dimly flickering candle-light her eyes glittered molten and her skin glowed, despite the distinct paling around her cheeks and mouth. Lauren drew in a deep breath, but Bo felt like the air had been sucked out of her lungs. Something was wrong, and if Bo lost Lauren…_

_Lauren shifted to sit up properly. Her fingers, still tangled in Bo’s, were trembling, and her lips parted as if to speak. Still, silence stretched between them until Lauren dropped her gaze from Bo’s and her chin to her chest, looking ashamed and sad, and scared._

_“Bo, there’s something I need to tell you,” Lauren’s whisper was like a breeze through leaves, soft and almost indistinguishable. Bo leaned in to hear her better, her heart was hammering in her ears and made it difficult to hear anything beyond the red crash of blood screaming through her veins. “After we got out of… O’Meara’s dungeon,” Lauren swallowed, her nostrils flared with the bitter, angry memories of her time locked away and helpless, “Trick asked me to do something unusual.”_

_Now Bo was confused. She leaned back a little, sensation was beginning to return to her adrenaline-numbed fingers, and she rubbed a thumb soothingly along Lauren’s knuckles. This was not how she expected the ‘break-up’ talk to go._

_Lauren finally looked back up at Bo. Her eyes were already reddening, her chin was trembling, and Bo brought a hand up to brush her thumb over the little dip just under her bottom lip – a feature Bo adored – and whispered for Lauren to keep going._

_“He suspected that, despite his assertions,” Lauren drew in a deep breath, her eyes fluttered closed, and she set her shoulders, determined to finally get this secret out, “Jack O’Meara is not your biological father.”_

_Bo was stunned. At first, she was sure she didn’t hear Lauren correctly. Then, once the words sank in, she was sure that Lauren was wrong._

_“But you tested his DNA. You said that. You tested his DNA against mine and it came back positive.” Bo’s words were loud to her own ears. Absurdly, she thought her stomach had gone numb. Lauren was staring intently at her now, her face tight with her seriousness, and her own fingers wrapping around Bo’s now to provide assurance and comfort._

_“I know,” she replied softly, “I still don’t know how, or why. I’ve gone through every notebook I have, all the research I’ve collected about the Fae – “ she stopped, her lips pressed together in her frustration, and straightened her shoulders again. “Trick asked me to check his DNA against yours again. Just to be sure. I had no idea why, at the time, but I trusted that he knew what he was doing, and would tell me in time.”_

_Bo could feel herself blinking heavily, almost in a stupor, as the story unfolded. She drew in a deep breath and straightened herself, drawing away from Lauren a tiny bit as she did so._

_But Lauren wasn’t finished, “When the test came back negative the first time, I thought it was a fluke. An error. I tested it twice, three times. Every time, it came back negative. Bo,” Lauren’s words were tumbling out of her mouth, her cheeks were flushed, and it was Bo who was pale now, dazed, paralyzed with dawning revelation._

_Lauren looked as if she were about to speak again, but Bo cut her off with a harsh whisper, “Then who’s my father?”_

_They fixed each other with strained stares, one colored by sadness and frustration and worry, the other tight with shock and not a small amount of anger._

_“I don’t know,” Lauren answered after a moment, aware that the question had been posed rhetorically, but needing, strangely, to reinforce it with her own words._

_“How long have you been keeping this from me?” Bo’s voice sounded strangled and alien, even to her own ears. There was a loud buzzing that crackled at the edges of her hearing, and made it a little difficult to focus on the panic that was beginning to pale the edges of Lauren’s face. “Bo –“ she started to say, but was cut off promptly by the angry bark of Bo’s words._

_“How long, Lauren?!”_

_Bo had never meant to upset Lauren. She didn’t want to be the reason she saw tears in Lauren’s eyes. But now, she was too angry and too scared and too shocked to care when Lauren’s eyes finally welled up with tears that spilled instantly down her cheeks. Her fingers were clenched now between Bo’s, and pain flashed across Lauren’s face, so Bo snatched her hands away._

_“A couple of weeks,” Lauren finally managed to choke out._

_It was like being hit over the head with a monster truck, but the sound of Lauren’s voice, strangled and small, brought Bo back to herself a little. She took in a deep breath, then drew Lauren into a tight, rigid embrace. Lauren gave a single, shuddering sob, and then relaxed a little in her arms._

_Bo breathed in the smell of her hair, honey mixed with Lauren’s shampoo and the vaguest smells of the dinner she’d painstakingly prepared for them. Lauren had always been there for her, always done what she had thought was best for her, and she’d always trusted Lauren intrinsically, instinctually. This time would be no different. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Bo whispered into Lauren’s hair. The questions this new development brought up were a whirling, foggy, chaotic mess inside her head, but this one, for now, was the most important._

_Lauren drew away a little. Her forehead bumped against Bo’s gently and settled there, and Lauren’s fingers dug deep into the base of Bo’s head, massaged the scalp where it became spine. It was a subconscious gesture, meant to sooth the blonde as much as to sooth the Succubus._

_“Trick wanted to wait until after your Dawning. At first, I agreed with him. You don’t need the distraction. But Bo, I don’t want to keep secrets from you. I don’t want you thinking you’re a monster, because of him.”_

_Bo raised her chin to kiss Lauren’s cheek tenderly. Eyelashes fluttered delicately across her cheek, an intimate caress, cool with drying tears against hot, flushed skin._

_“Lauren, I’m not a monster because of him,” Bo tried to sound assured of this, but the voice inside her that had been whispering to her for years, ever since she’d found Kyle dead in her arms, whispered to her again, cold and apathetic and in control: '_ I'm just a monster, because that’s what I am. _’ And the niggling thought she’d believed she destroyed upon visiting her mother continued: ‘_ And just because he’s not my father, that doesn’t mean that I wasn’t fathered by one anyway. _’_

 


	19. Chapter 19

Her Dawning was scheduled to begin within minutes. Bo’s stomach was twisted into knots, her palms were sweaty, she was nervous, terrified. Everyone had already arrived: Kenzi had come with her from the clubhouse, and Dyson, Tamsin, Maia and Stella were all at the Dal with her and Trick, waiting for the final moments before the Ceremony began. To send her off into a great unknown that she may not emerge from completely whole.

Everyone was there, except Lauren.

Bo knew that they’d been having problems. The distance between them had only grown since their experiences in Jack O’Meara’s mansion, slowly, but surely. Bo was afraid that Lauren might not come, terrified that Lauren simply had better things to do. On some level, Bo knew that Lauren wouldn’t be so callous or insensitive, she knew that Lauren loved her and wouldn’t miss seeing her one last time before she took her final test, her final step into Fae adulthood. Especially since that step could easily descend her into madness.

Still, the terror that Lauren might not care gripped her, made her stomach swim queasily and her heart beat heavily in her chest.

She’d already called Lauren four times that afternoon since she and Kenzi had arrived, trying to get a hold of her, trying to find out where she was and if she was coming, but only ever got the answering machine.

The final ring echoed into her ear, and Lauren’s voicemail offered to take a message after the beep. Bo grit her teeth, but forced herself to relax enough to sound as close to normal as she could manage, “Hey, Lo, I’m not trying to stalk you,” Bo drew in a deep breath, “I was just wondering, uh… if –“

The creak of the Dal’s old front door and the sound of footsteps yanked her attention away from Lauren’s answering machine. Bo swiveled in place, hopeful, heart in throat that the person at the door would be Lauren, come at last, to be there for her, like she always was.

This time, she wasn’t disappointed. Bo’s face lit up with a smile, one that made Bo’s face look younger and brighter than any other expression could. Lauren smiled shyly back, her footsteps slowed a little, but her smile was honest, and Bo stepped forward to close the gap between them. They stopped only a foot apart.

“I was afraid you weren’t going to make it,” Bo admitted, her smile fading a little. Lauren looked beautiful: dressed in a deep purple button down and slim, form-fitting jeans and those brown leather heels that suited her so well. Her hair was loose, and fell in lazy, golden waves around her shoulders. Bo wanted to bury her fingers in that soft hair, to lean in and kiss that sweet smile and smell her honey scent, but she was feeling a little abashed, a little shy, a little like now wasn’t the time.

“I wouldn’t miss this for the world, Bo,” Lauren’s voice was soft and low, it sent a thrum of pleasure and contentment racing through Bo’s system, and not a little affirmation of her belief of Lauren’s loyalty and love. But still… “Those twenty-seven texts you didn’t answer?” Bo challenged, afraid even now that Lauren had been avoiding her, hadn’t wanted to see her, until she absolutely had to.

“I’ve been working like a demon trying to find a serum or an antibody,” Lauren’s gaze broke, frustration lined her face and Bo realized how tired she looked, “just something that might – “

“Hey, hey!” Bo reached immediately for Lauren’s hand, closing the foot-wide gap between them just a little more, “It’s ok, babe.” She hadn’t meant to sound accusing, or angry. She was just happy that Lauren was here, just happy that she could see her, could touch her. Bo was scared, and Lauren made her feel safe, and going through the Dawning with the knowledge that Lauren was by her side, rooting for her, caring about her, praying that she’d come back safely made Bo feel a little better about her chances of getting through it in one piece.

But Lauren pressed her lips together, and though her fingers squeezed Bo’s gently, Lauren didn’t seem so confident that anything was okay at all. 

“It’s not,” Lauren finally whispered. She looked scared too.

“Friends! Can I have your attention please,” Trick’s gentle voice carried clearly across the establishment, and Lauren suddenly drew her hand out of Bo’s. A frown knit across Bo’s features, but she turned to face her grandfather and drew in a deep, calming breath. The Ceremony was starting.

“A toast to my granddaughter,” Trick beamed up at Bo, goblet in hand and his tone quieting a little as everyone gathered around to hear him, “I’m so very proud of you,” he continued, raising the goblet a little in her direction, “we all are.”

Bo smiled a little at him. Nervous as she was, it was so good to have him stand in front of her and say those things, and she loved him so much for it.

“You’ve been through so much in the past few years, but you’ve always stayed true to yourself… to your heart,” and as he said this, Bo felt Lauren’s presence close by her side. She wanted, desperately, to reach over and take Lauren’s hand in her own, but she didn’t.

He raised his goblet high in the air, and his dark eyes bored intently into hers, “May this Dawning be your greatest triumph,” a wish, a hope, a hard, heartsick need for Bo to come back safely.

“Now come,” Trick stepped close to her, and Bo felt her heart clench with fear and her insides pitch and turn. “It’s time.”

He took her down to his lair and painted her forehead with the symbol of her heritage. His fingers were rough and calloused where they brushed her skin, but he was gentle, and the silvery powder he used tingled faintly with some strange magic. And through those short, precious moments alone with her grandfather, she was scared almost sick that she might never come home.

 

It wasn’t long before they finally made it back upstairs. Some of the chairs and tables had been moved to make space for the Dawning’s needs. Weapons of almost every size and variety were scattered across one large wooden table, and a little bowl of water, accompanied by another filled with sweet-smelling flowers, sat alone on the floor before the stage. This was where she was meant to enter the temple.

Tamsin and Maia stood close beside each other, the furthest away from the Ceremony itself and closest to the door. They leaned in close to each other, watched Bo as she reappeared from the hidden door behind the bar and whispered in hushed tones. Dyson and Kenzi also stood together, close to the spot in which Bo herself was to stand: reliable, affectionate friends and staunch allies, both to each other and to Bo. And Lauren stood alone, a little apart from everyone else, but close by what would be Bo’s left hand. She fidgeted with her fingers, her face was pale in the Dal’s dim light and she watched with a faint, tight smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. Bo smiled reassuringly back at her, then walked slowly and deliberately to her place at the front, right across from Stella and the impressive array of weaponry that covered the table. Trick fell in beside Stella, and before Bo had even realized it, they’d begun.

She didn’t hear most of what was said. She’d memorized it days before anyway, when they’d begun training for the final Ceremony that would lead her straight into the Dawning. She was only aware of the blood pounding in her ears and the clamminess of her hands and a longing, aching desire to reach back and tangle her fingers with Lauren’s. She struggled with it, her lips pressed together into a thin line, and she forced herself to focus on the formal words Stella spoke, and on the test that would decide the rest of her life.

“… And, with full knowing, the Initiate enters willingly into the sacred Ceremony. Do you accept the invitation?” Stella’s voice broke through Bo’s muddled, frightened thoughts. She was staring at Bo, waiting for an answer. The parchment roll she read from lowered in her grip and curled closed a little, expectant, impatient. Everything was moving far too fast.

Bo closed her eyes for a moment and steeled her trembling nerves, “I accept,” she answered in a voice more confident than she felt.

“The time has come for you to choose an aide to take with you into the Dawning,” Stella went on as though she did this every day – though considering what she did, that probably wasn’t too far from the truth, “But you may not choose a weapon until you choose a side.” Only then did Stella begin to sound a little unsure of herself. A flutter of movement from Bo’s right distracted her a little, but Stella was eyeing her a little uncomfortably, and now Bo just wanted to get it all over with.

“You already know my answer.”

Stella’s chin rose, as though a little surprised, though no one else seemed to share the sentiment. 

“Then you know the consequences,” Stella paused, glanced around the room, and then her pale eyes settled on Bo’s again. She looked so calm, so composed. “Be it witnessed: the Initiate ascends to enter the Dawning unarmed!”

Blood roared through Bo’s ears. Her legs felt like jelly. Now, it really was time. She started to turn to her left, where the copper bowl of water and smaller clay platter of flowers waited for her, but was stopped by a fluttering touch on her arm.

“Wait,” Lauren’s voice was a breath of cool air. Bo’s skin tingled over her wrist, where Lauren’s fingers closed and drew her in. For once, the flutter in her stomach was not the squirm of anxiety and ill-ease, but the light, butterfly stirrings of romantic excitement and bliss. Lauren was in her arms again, and her warm mouth pressed against Bo’s. Long, strong fingers tangled in Bo’s hair, and Bo’s heart sang with the simple, delicious pleasure of the feel of Lauren close against her. Bo’s hands slid up toned arms, across finely muscled shoulders and held on tightly, and she returned the intense, needy pressure of Lauren’s lips with her own.

The kiss was far too short. Lauren’s breath washed over her, and Bo was left breathless again by the blonde that stared lovingly into her eyes. There was worry there, but there was confidence and strength and affection too. It warmed Bo’s heart and strengthened her will and resolve to come back home alive and whole to the woman that she loved with every fiber of her being.

“For luck,” Lauren’s softly spoken words sounded almost like a question, but there was a tender, sweet smile on her lips, and she smelled so intoxicatingly of honey and soap. 

“Believe me, I feel lucky,” Bo whispered back. She wanted to lean in and kiss her again, but Bo knew that it was time for her to go. She licked her lips, brushed her forehead against Lauren’s in a final goodbye, and their arms fell from around each other with a whisper of cloth against skin. They smiled and stared at each other for a quiet, breathless moment longer, and then Bo turned away.

And when she dropped the lotus flower into the still, peaceful pool of water and watched a bright blue vortex open in front of her, Bo wasn’t so scared of taking that final leap into adulthood at all.

* * *

_Bo held on to Lauren for a long time. She was a mess of screaming, demanding questions, but she stayed silent and thoughtful. Lauren was almost limp in her arms, and if Bo had been less engrossed in her own dark, straying thoughts, she might have noticed and begun to wonder if there was still another shoe about to drop._

_After a while, Lauren pulled away carefully, her fingers brought down the circle of Bo’s arms around her shoulders and gently put her hands back in her lap. The candles she’d lit for dinner were still crackling quietly, and the musty, sweet smell of wax burned in the air. The slow, sharp ticking of the clock kept up a rhythm like a metronome, counting away the seconds and minutes with cold, impersonal precision while Bo processed her thoughts and ignored almost everything around her. Lauren just watched the Succubus, her tawny eyes sad and dark with unshed tears._

_For Bo, everything was beginning to unravel. She knew she was close to her Dawning, and had already begun to devolve a little. Everything smelled richer and stronger to her sensitive nose, and the low, thin stirrings of violence whispered across her heart and mind, little whirlwinds of passion that could go any way but calm. She had gone mad in the bowels of O’Meara’s mansion, spurred on by the belief that she’d been spawned by a monster and could be nothing else because of it. The things she had done and said, even gripped as she was by the monster inside her… would she have done and said those things if she hadn’t thought O’Meara was her father? And who was to blame for this? The man that had lied to her and turned her against the people that had loved and stood beside her for years, with nothing but mocking words? Was it herself, so gullible and weak and prone to fits of passion and drama? Was it Lauren, who’d done nothing but offer what she thought was the truth? Maia, who’d brought them there blindly in pursuit of a lost loved one?_

_“Why are you telling me this now?” Bo’s voice finally cracked through the tense silence. Lauren only looked at her and pursed her lips, as if she didn’t understand the question, until Bo’s dark eyes wandered over and met Lauren’s. “You said you didn’t tell me before because I didn’t need the distraction. So why are you telling me now? What changed?”_

_Lauren sighed softly, her eyelids fluttered shut for an instant and she looked down at her hands, curled in her lap, and at Bo’s knees only inches away. She considered taking one of Bo’s hands in her own, to ease the tension that dug mercilessly like the bars of a cage closing in around them, but found that she was simply too tired._

_“You needed to know,” she offered simply instead. Lauren finally looked back up into Bo’s eyes, her own expression studiously calm, calmly professional. “And I needed to tell you. Your Dawning is going to be hard enough, even with all the facts. And Bo,” Lauren’s voice wavered a little, and the air of confident professionalism she’d worn like a pair of gloves faltered, “I don’t know if I can do this,” Lauren flinched, her fingers twisted and tightened in her lap, “anymore.”_

_Bo’s nostrils flared and she blinked in shock. Her heart sputtered in her chest and anger crawled across her skin like worms._

_“What?” Bo’s voice was a harsh, choked whisper. She could only guess what Lauren had meant, but it didn’t matter, the words prickled under her skin, whispered in her ears like an echo. She grit her teeth, and forced herself to wait the conversation out, forced herself to be patient enough to hear the rest of what Lauren had to say._

_Lauren hesitated a little. “I can’t keep up with all the secrets and the lies. It hurt that you stood me up the night of the awards ceremony,” Lauren’s voice trembled and faltered, it sounded weak and fragile in the heavy, tense air between them, “but it hurt so much worse that you felt like you had to lie to me about why.” Bo struggled with her own screaming emotions over Lauren’s confession. She barely heard a word Lauren had said, only the soft, harsh words ‘I can’t do this anymore’ played over and over in her head._

_Lauren finally reached into Bo’s lap to tangle her fingers with Bo’s but Bo pulled sharply, petulantly, away. It was almost like having an out of body experience, she felt like she was watching herself do and say these things, but seemed to have no control over herself at all. She was retreating back into herself much like she’d done at O’Meara’s, she thought. Lauren looked heartbroken._

_“What are you saying?” Bo strangled her vocal chords into working. Tendrils of rage and shock and hurt raced and skittered under her skin, and where Lauren had touched her, she burned._

_Lauren could have given the white flag, could have taken it all back and crept into her lover’s arms whispering apologies and assurances, and it might have calmed Bo down and it might have given them a few more desperate, pathetic, unhappy days together. The consideration of this flickered across her features for an instant. It would be better for Bo if she’d never said anything at all, and Bo had continued on in her selfish delusion that all was well between them. Bo could see now that it had been nothing more than a delusion in the way Lauren’s mouth trembled and her fingers drew away, back into the sanctuary of her own lap._

_“I’m not happy, Bo,” Lauren said at last. Her words were calm, and that terrified Bo._

_“But I am!” Bo cried, her voice rose to a shout and her eyes burned with tears, “I mean, aside from all this Dawning crap, God… Lauren…” her loud, hoarse words hushed, “I am.”_

_Lauren looked away and Bo could see the unhappiness in the lines of her mouth and the darkness of her eyes. “I know,” she murmured, unable to meet Bo’s hurt stare, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to start this conversation with you tonight, I just meant…” Lauren hesitated again, she stared down at her fingers, twisting in her lap, and drew in a shaky breath, “… I don’t want any lies between us anymore,” her voice fell to a barely audible whisper._

_“But you did,” Bo’s eyes blazed with anger and resentment. She jumped off the couch like it had burned her and stared down at Lauren with her hands and jaw clenched and her mouth tightened into a hard line. Lauren finally looked up at her, and her eyes were filled with tears and her shoulders were hunched. She looked so tired, so deflated, and Bo knew she hadn’t been the best girlfriend. She knew that feeding the way she had from her Thralls back at her father’s – no, O’Meara’s mansion – had been wrong, and hurtful to Lauren. She knew she had been demanding, had missed the only important event in Lauren’s life for years, even if it had been to complete the puzzle presented by her Dawning’s invitation, and had lied about where she was and what she was doing as well. And she’d kissed Dyson, a betrayal to Lauren so deep it had almost destroyed her, and their relationship, and Bo, when she’d forced herself to tell her. And Bo couldn’t survive off one human, especially with her Dawning so close, something that had become abundantly clear between them over the past few weeks._

_There had been so much between them, so many reasons for Lauren to be unhappy, so many things that complicated their relationship to the point where it almost became too much of a struggle to keep trying._

_But Bo still felt betrayed, still felt abandoned. And those things that had made their relationship so difficult barely crossed her mind. As far as she was concerned, Lauren was just giving up, and that incensed Bo, it hurt her, and she couldn’t think beyond her own pain to consider the hardships that Lauren must have dealt with to get her to this point._

_“I love you, Bo,” Lauren’s voice wavered in the air between them, tight and thick with emotion. She swallowed to choke out, “but I will never be enough for you.”_

_Bo’s blood raged within her, her fists clenched and unclenched at her sides. Seeing Lauren like this was heartbreaking, seeing the tears in her eyes and the hunch of her shoulders, so deflated, so broken. But her own hurt and resentment and betrayal burned through Bo’s veins, hotter and sharper than the sympathy and love she felt for Lauren. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Bo hissed through her teeth._

_Lauren drew in a shuddering breath and held it in. Bo wouldn’t sit, and she was too tired to stand, she dropped her head into her hands with her elbows balanced on her knees, and her hair, glowing in the dim candlelight, fell in a warm, velvet curtain around her face. Bo’s heart beat in her ears, she wanted to bury her face in that hair, to make Lauren take it all back, so much she knew she wouldn’t be able to control herself if she tried. And Bo knew she owed Lauren so much more than that. So she waited, breathlessly, for Lauren to speak again. Finally, Lauren raised her chin to look at Bo, her nostrils were flaring erratically and her chin and bottom lip trembled uncertainly, but she forced herself to speak._

_“I’m just – I’m so tired, Bo,” Lauren’s voice was thin and high, almost as if she couldn’t summon the breath from her lungs to speak, “these past few years with the Fae, I – “ she paused, bit back her tears, forced herself to go on, “The Garuda…“ she shuddered and choked, “and Nadia,” her last words were a sigh, saturated with loss. Bo could feel her whole body tremble, her blood roared in her ears and her heart screamed in her chest. Like a child in the middle of a tantrum, she grit her teeth until her jaw felt numb and clenched her fists until blood welled under her nails and spun around to leave._

_“Bo, where are you going?!” Lauren cried after her, her words sharp and ragged, and she finally managed to pull herself to her feet. When Bo spun back around, she saw the anguish in Lauren’s face, but was blind to it in the face of her own hurt and anger, “We’re breaking up, aren’t we?!” she spat. When Lauren reached for her hand, she shoved it away. Lauren’s eyes, dark and sad, begged her to stay, but Bo felt like her heart was fit to explode and everything, everything hurt. Without sparing Lauren another word, she tore out of the apartment at a half-run, unmindful of Lauren’s cries for her to wait, and kept going until she had run out the building and slammed bodily into her car._

_There, finally, alone with her thoughts and in the cold night air, Bo stopped and leaned against her car. The metal under her skin was cold, and raised goosebumps along her arms and neck and chest. Her breath was coming in short bursts now, and the air felt too thin, too scarce to breathe. She doubled over with her hands on her knees, gasping for air that would not come for her, with tears dripping down her face and crashing into the asphalt below. She knew she had reacted badly, knew that Lauren had deserved far better from her than the harsh words she’d shouted and the way she’d stormed out. She knew that she would come to regret it, that she already regretted it, and that all she wanted was to rush back into Lauren’s arms and kiss her fiercely, to ease the hurt and sorrow Lauren had been through with a touch, a caress, to love her the way that she deserved to be loved. It didn’t matter how hard of a struggle their relationship could be, because it was all worth it. Bo knew it, she thought Lauren knew it too. And maybe it was Bo’s fault, she hadn’t been showing Lauren just how worth it their love was…_

_But anger still swarmed uneasily in her gut. And Bo knew that with her Dawning so close, it would be a hard battle to get it under control, to get herself under any semblance of control._

_And Lauren had gotten at least one thing wrong. She’d said she could never be enough for Bo. But Bo knew, better than she’d known anything over the past few weeks, that it was Bo that hadn’t been, couldn’t be, enough for Lauren._

_So though everything in her ached, screamed, for her to run back upstairs to Lauren’s apartment and rush into her arms, Bo swallowed her sobs and crawled into the sanctuary of her beat up yellow Camaro, and drove home._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know. Break-ups suck. Especially when they involve one of the most epic and beautiful pairings ever presented on screen. And Bo sucks at break-ups. But this is a Doccubus story, so they will get back together. Promise.


	20. Chapter 20

The light of the moon flooded the room, it fell in shafts through the windows, the curtains still drawn wide open since morning, and pooled silver and cool on the wooden floor beams. It glowed in a fine mist over everything it touched, pure, sweet, and silent. And in the silence and stillness of the night, the sheets rustled softly and the light, measured breathing of two women curled together in bed were all the noise that filtered through the magically lit room.

Bo sighed in her sleep, a quiet, content little sound that drifted across her lover’s face. One eyelid cracked open experimentally, and she stretched an arm high above her head before opening the other slowly. The moonbeams that poured through the open window onto her lover’s face kissed smooth, pale skin, and Bo could feel a slow, happy smile press against the sides of her mouth. Sleepily, she leaned in a little closer to the face whose breath kissed her cheeks and brushed her lips over her lover’s. They were warm, and responded immediately and tenderly to the caress.

Tawny eyes fluttered open, butterfly wings that shuddered against Bo’s skin, then fluttered closed again. The arm draped carelessly over Bo’s waist drew up along her back and pulled her closer. Bare legs entwined in each other’s and tangled in the warm, sleepy sheets around them tightened, and Bo was breathless and basking in the attention of those warm, sweet lips on hers, and in the skin pressed against her that warmed her heart.

A low, soft moan shivered in the air between their mouths. “I love you,” Bo whispered quietly into it, and was met with a kiss a little fiercer and hungrier than the last. Her stomach flip-flopped, and then Bo was rolling over in bed, pressing her weight and naked flesh into the woman beneath her with a matching ferocity and hunger. Her skin tingled and sang where it met Lauren’s naked body, and Bo bent her head to her lover’s neck to taste the sleepy, dewy flavors that gathered there under the moonlight’s soulful stare.

Long fingers tightened over Bo’s shoulders, and Lauren shifted under Bo’s weight. She hummed quietly into Bo’s ear, a growling, hungry sound that warmed her from the inside out. A tongue darted out to lick the curve of Bo’s neck, and soft, warm lips closed over the dampened space in a wet kiss. Where Lauren’s mouth traveled, Bo’s skin purred and tingled. Blunt nails scraped along Bo’s spine, and Lauren’s skin under her lips and teeth and tongue tasted like salted honey. A deep, craving hunger awoke low in her belly and burned still lower than that. She moved against Lauren’s body, awake and alert now to every shift, every brush of skin on skin, every soft, low groan and sigh that fell from Lauren’s lips.

Slowly, Bo traveled over every inch of Lauren’s body. She tasted the long, strong lines of Lauren’s throat, kissed the flexing muscles of her shoulders, fell lower to savor the sweet, soft curves of Lauren’s breasts, the hardened, pert nipples. Her mouth traveled lower still, licked along Lauren’s abs and followed the dip between her ribs down her belly when Lauren gasped in pleasure. Enraptured and enthralled by the living sweetness of Lauren’s body, Bo went on, her mouth rediscovering every curve, every trembling muscle, her tongue tasting every line, every hill and valley, every delicious inch of her. Her eyelashes brushed along the smooth skin left in her mouth’s wake, and she soaked in every gasp, every moan Lauren breathed in hungry, aroused appreciation. When Bo had kissed the arch of Lauren’s feet, the backs of her knees and traced her way up again from the base of Lauren’s spine to its top and tasted again the heady, rich flavor of Lauren’s musk and sweat on her neck, Lauren turned them both over in bed, and the sheets fell in a hushed whisper to the floor.

A waterfall of muted gold cascaded around Bo’s face, glowing in the rich moonlight and warm with life. Lauren pressed herself against Bo, and Bo was infinitely, minutely aware of the sensation of Lauren’s firm, supple skin, naked and warm, against her own. Her fingers danced over Lauren’s spine, making her arch her back and stretch and groan in pleasure. Bo couldn’t resist the long, glowing lines of Lauren’s throat, she rose to meet it again with her mouth and suckled on flushing skin. It hummed under Bo’s lips, and when she raised a leg between Lauren’s own she found hot skin, soft as silk and dripping with need.

A low, harsh pant escaped her, and Lauren dropped her chin to press a hard, hungry kiss to Bo’s mouth. Her tongue slid along Bo’s lips, and Bo opened to her, eager for Lauren to enter. Bo buried her fingers in Lauren’s hair, tangled them in thick, mussed ropes of it, and tugged her down, closer, deeper. Lauren tightened and coiled in Bo’s arms, spreading sticky heat over Bo’s thigh and tearing a long, low groan from Bo’s throat that shuddered between their lips. Bo was hot and wet now too, and the burning, consuming hunger that had awoken deep in her belly was spreading in warm, licking tendrils through every inch of her.

“Bo,” Lauren’s mumble was half-gasp, half-groan, and shivered against Bo’s mouth in a way that made her cry back gutturally. They had only just begun, and Bo was already almost undone, overwhelmed by the pleasure of holding Lauren in her arms and bruising her mouth against Lauren’s lips. She wanted Lauren to say her name that way again, ached for it, and she shivered in anticipation when Lauren’s lips formed the letters of her name while they kissed. “Bo,” Lauren’s gasp was harsh and ragged, it scraped along Bo’s skin, felt like molten kisses pressed to the insides of her thighs and drew a panting, shallow moan from her again.

Lauren pulled up and away, her lips were flushed and swollen with the heat and intensity of their kisses, and she writhed compulsively against Bo, gasped when Bo arched herself into her. Fire burned in the deep depths of Lauren’s eyes, made darker by the cool, sweet moonlight that filtered through her rich yellow hair. Her cheeks were bright with passion, and every gasp she gave washed over Bo’s face in wave after hot wave of sweet, delicious arousal. The air around her crackled with intensity, bright as fireworks in a black velvet sky with sexuality and energy.

“I want to give you everything, Bo,” Lauren gasped and shuddered, contracted and relaxed in Bo’s arms and the careful, dexterous way Bo’s fingers danced over her skin and slid between them. Bo leaned up again to conquer Lauren’s mouth with her own, and Lauren pushed her back down with a hard, needy kiss. Lauren’s nipples pressed into Bo’s breasts, and when Bo opened her mouth to groan in pleasure, Lauren dipped her head to the curve between Bo’s neck and shoulder and nipped teasingly at the tight, tensing muscle there. When Lauren spoke again, her voice was a rich, rough husk in Bo’s ear, “Feed from me.”

The command drew a harsh, scraping gasp from Bo. And like so many times in Lauren’s company, Bo found herself completely breathless again. Her whole body screamed with need and arousal and want, and Bo’s teeth closed hard over Lauren’s earlobe, dragging a gasping cry from Lauren that melted Bo’s bones and made her tendons jump. They tumbled in bed together again, a jumbled tangle of skin and arms and legs and hair, until Bo pulled Lauren up to sit, her legs thrown over Lauren’s thighs and their hot, dripping sexes pressed urgently against each other.

Tender and gentle again, Bo cupped Lauren’s jaw and traced the line of her mouth with a thumb pressed between their kisses. She traced the dip under Lauren’s bottom lip too, brushed the soft pad of her finger over Lauren’s chin and whimpered sweetly into Lauren’s mouth. “Lauren,” her name dripped from Bo’s lips, a plea and a prayer, begging and uncertain, “I don’t want to hurt you.”

They parted for a brief moment, and Bo marveled at the soft, ethereal lines of Lauren’s face bathed in moonlight and glowing with bliss. Lauren smiled sweetly at her, Bo leaned in to taste it once, before pulling back again and drawing in a deep, happy breath. The air around Lauren tasted sweet with Lauren’s honeyed scent and rich and salty with sweat and the smell of their lovemaking.

“I trust you,” Lauren’s words, hushed and almost reverent in their honesty, brushed over Bo’s mouth. Bo breathed it in, then stole Lauren’s breath with a long, adoring kiss.

They built each other up again, with fingers tangled in thick ropes of hair and rough, hurried kisses and their shuddering, naked bodies pressed urgently against each other’s. Bo licked and suckled and fondled Lauren’s lips with her own, moaned and gasped into Lauren’s warm, open mouth and shuddered in her lover’s warm, tight, encircling arms until their breaths came in shallow pants again and the sheets beneath them were soaked and hot and steaming in the sparkling fantasy moonlight that poured through the windows onto them. Bo had never fed from Lauren before, but had always dreamed about what it would be like. She’d always wondered if Lauren’s Chi would taste wild and sweet like honey straight from the comb, if it would curl in her mouth and stick in her throat and drip over her lips if it overflowed. She’d wondered if it would fill her, every inch of her, with wild, sweet ecstasy, if it would leave her crying with bliss and gasping for more, if she would lose herself in it like a giggling, playing child under too many blankets.

It was nothing like Bo had ever imagined, and everything like Bo had ever dreamed. When she drew her first sip of Lauren’s Chi, it came sweet and subtle, like the drops of nectar from a honeysuckle on her tongue, and tore a gasping, urgent cry of delight from Lauren that glittered against Bo’s skin like frost in the night. The warmest, wettest parts of her shivered with arousal and anticipation, and Bo licked her lips and Lauren’s in excitement, and to draw more of that sweet flavor deeper into her mouth. Again, Bo drew on Lauren’s Chi, more deeply this time, and it tickled her throat and exploded in her mouth, more wild and sweet than she could have ever expected. It was tempered, Bo found, like it was coated in warm, salted butter, and the flavors that invaded her senses were so rich and complex, that Bo found herself digging her nails into Lauren’s back and gasping her shock, and Lauren gave back a cry that was harsh and longing and thick with arousal. Bo sucked in more, focused wholly on the vibrant, delicious, erotic experience of Lauren’s Chi on her tongue and their shared climax building in a tidal wave around them. Sensation swirled in her belly, her sex clenched and unclenched with coming orgasm and she struggled against Lauren and crashed over her on the bed in a tangled mass of arms and legs until Bo straddled one tense thigh and jerked and jolted over Lauren's naked, slick, writhing body.

The bedroom which had been silent, save for their gasps of pleasure and the whisper of skin on skin and sheets above and below and between, turned violently loud. The bed creaked and groaned beneath them, its sounds of protest lost amid the dragging, gasping moans and cries that shuddered and struggled and danced between the two lovers. And Bo drank deeply, desperately, from Lauren until stars exploded behind her eyelids and her skin felt raw and tingling and her insides ran hot and molten like lava within. Finally, dizzy and drunk with ecstasy, they crashed, screaming their climax until their throats were hoarse and their ears rang, and they jolted and shuddered against each other and gasped and gulped for air until exhaustion stole at them and calmed them, and Bo fell into a heavy, gorged slumber wrapped and tangled in the arms of her lover.

 

When Bo woke again, the cool, silvery moonlight was replaced by the warm newborn rays of the sun. It flittered over the windowsill, playful and alive and awake, and kissed Bo’s skin until she felt warm all over. The air still smelled rich and heady and strong with their lovemaking, and Bo ached sweetly everywhere, and for the first time in a long time, finally felt full and sated and peaceful.

But the bed beside her was cold. The pillow under her arm, lumpy and uncomfortable, woke Bo. Lauren’s warm arms didn’t drape over hers, and Bo’s own hair was tangled in a shimmering, golden mess over her face.

Bo almost rose, before her heart froze in her chest.

“Lauren?” Her whisper was choked with fear. The body she cradled in her arms was cold and stiff, and the golden hair that tickled her nose wasn’t hers. She gave a shuddering gasp before tearing herself upright to stare down at the woman she’d held in her arms.

Lauren lay still and silent, her mouth still curled sweetly in a tender, loving smile. Her eyes were lightly shut, and she looked like she may have been sleeping. But her chest didn’t swell with deep, sleepy breaths, and her skin was so cold…

“Lauren,” Bo’s voice a strangled, frightened sob, and she shook Lauren’s still form to wake her. But she was stiffly curled in the position in which they’d slept, her back arched into Bo’s chest and her legs tangled with the sheets Bo had pulled up in the middle of the night. She didn’t answer. Panic blindsided Bo.

She shoved Lauren onto her back, more roughly than she’d intended, but her hands were shaking and her muscles weren’t her own to command. She crouched over Lauren’s still, silent, unbreathing body, roughly opened her mouth, and tried to breathe back in the Chi she’d stolen so greedily from her the night before. Tears broke from her eyes and crashed on Lauren’s cheeks, hot and almost steaming against Lauren’s frozen skin, and Bo pushed and gagged and tried to force her Chi into Lauren’s body, but Lauren didn’t respond. She only smiled closed-eyed up at her, peaceful in lifeless slumber.

Bo’s heart was rioting wildly in her chest, and her stomach clenched and unclenched until Bo thought she might vomit. Her ears rang with shrill, panicked cries that she didn’t immediately realize were her own, torn violently from her throat, until she was gasping for breath and her lungs burned for oxygen.

And then she bent over Lauren, their foreheads pressed together, and Bo kissed her lips over and over and over again, whispering, “Lauren, honey… please! Lauren… I can’t… Lauren, please,” and both their faces were wet with Bo’s tears. But Lauren wouldn’t move, wouldn’t sigh, wouldn’t open her eyes. And Bo was breathless, aching, broken, in the loss of the woman she’d loved to death.

Madly, restlessly, Bo whispered Lauren’s name over and over again in harsh, croaking whispers. She begged and pleaded and cajoled and prayed, but Lauren wouldn’t move, wouldn’t breathe, wouldn’t warm. Bo pulled the covers over their shoulders, wrapped herself tightly around Lauren and gasped sobbing kisses into her unresponsive mouth, as though she might warm Lauren’s blood with her own body, might stimulate the blood to flow and the heart to beat. But Lauren was lost.

And without Lauren, Bo was broken.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

**The air was gone from Bo’s lungs. She scrambled to breathe, but it was like the air had been sucked out of time and space, and she was suspended, motionless, breathless, hopeless, in a reality without Lauren by her side. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t cry, couldn’t speak, she was frozen and broken, a dead mass of bone and muscle, destroyed and unraveled.**

**Once before, she’d killed her lover. She’d killed Kyle, more than ten years ago now, in very much the same way. It had almost destroyed her. But it was nothing like the bleak emptiness that ravaged her now, nothing like the despairing torment that battered her from every angle and shred every last glimmer of hope and happiness away from her.**

**She loved Lauren, loved her so much sometimes it was like the world began and ended with her, with the crisp, golden shimmer of her hair, and the bright sparkle of her eyes, the bashfulness of her smile, the dip under her lip. She’d memorized every sacred inch of Lauren’s body with a reverence and passion usually reserved only for the gods that humans believed in, lived and died for.**

**The tilt of Lauren’s head jumped inside Bo’s closed eyes, and the ghost of her mouth kissed Bo’s trembling lips. Bo’s skin tingled with the sweet aftermath of every touch of Lauren’s fingers, from the very first time they touched at Lauren’s lab to the last clench of her fingers around Bo’s and the last whisper of a kiss they’d shared.**

**Bo’s chest tightened and her stomach clenched in knots and her lungs screamed for oxygen, but Bo couldn’t drag even the smallest breath through her tightly constricted throat. For a change, the empty blackness that surrounded Bo like the cold, never-ending expanse of the ocean felt appropriate, natural. Without Lauren, this was all that was left for Bo. Nothing.**

**Lauren had trusted her, had given her everything she’d ever had to give. Even before she’d offered her final tribute to the love they’d shared, Lauren had given Bo everything she’d ever wanted and needed, everything she could ever want or need. Lauren had been everything to her. And she’d killed her, consumed her, fed on her like she’d carelessly fed on countless other Fae before her. She’d spoiled the sanctity of their union, and now Lauren was gone. And what did Bo have to live for, without Lauren?**

**The soft, delicate notes of Lauren’s laughter tickled Bo’s ears. She couldn’t remember the last time she and Lauren had laughed together, but she remembered Lauren’s laugh clearly, like she’d only heard it seconds ago. Close and intimate and warm with the love they shared. Bo huddled tighter into herself, aching to be left alone with that warm, tinkling sound, with her memories of Lauren and nothing else but imminent death and devolution.**

**The darkness around her begged her to let go, to let it swallow all her pain. It promised a reprieve from the heartache and torment that wracked her, that held her breathless and broken, if only she would surrender herself to it. Slowly, Bo gave herself to it, shattered, inconsolable, and lost. Slowly, solemnly, she reached out her arms and gave herself away to the darkness that called…**

 


	21. Chapter 21

The scent of lilacs and lilies lingered sweetly in the air, long after the blinding flash of light swallowed Bo whole and spirited her away to the Dawning that would define the rest of Bo’s life as one of the Fae.

Everyone had collected in a semicircle around the little bowls of water and flowers, where Bo had knelt and dropped a lily into the still pool of water and invoked the magic that began one of the biggest trials of her life. And there they still stood, dazed and lost. Anxiety ate away at them, threw their minds into troubled whorls of worried chatter, and stole the words they might have used to comfort one another straight from their mouths.

It might have been only moments or a long, silent hour before any noise broke the tense quiet. A clatter shattered the air, and they all spun on their heels to see that Lauren had slipped inside noiselessly and had clumsily knocked over a stool in her nervous attempt to sit down and stare with them.

Dyson’s nostrils flared, his brows knit in concern over faded blue eyes, and he took the first step toward the distraught doctor that shakily poured herself a glass of wine from the bar.

“Lauren…” he hesitated, his voice seemed nebulous in the thick air between them, but he took another step forward, and another, until he closed the distance between them and settled a gentle, tentative hand on her shoulder, “you made it,” he breathed.

Lauren’s lip quivered, her chin trembled, and she closed her eyes and tried a tremulous smile before she turned her face up to meet Dyson’s worried gaze.

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” her voice sounded choked. Lauren’s eyes fell back to the smooth, gleaming surface of the bar, and Dyson pursed his lips and considered what Lauren had been through with Bo over the last week. Though it hadn’t yet been a day, it wasn’t a secret that they’d broken up – Bo hadn’t been herself all day, had been morose, bad-tempered and distracted up until the moment she’d entered the Temple, and Lauren had canceled her check-up on Maia, whom she’d carefully, diligently treated since Maia had come to her weeks ago after the Redcaps’ attack. Everyone had noticed the change in Bo’s attitude, and it had left them all with a despondent hopelessness.

Trick cleared his throat, breaking the penetrating silence that reigned over them, and strode across the floor to Lauren. He smiled kindly at her, put his hand over her shoulder in greeting, and Lauren smiled tiredly back.

“Drinks are on me,” he said to her softly, then turned his attention to Kenzi and Stella, standing awkwardly still and watching with quiet concern, “Kenzi, Stella, why don’t you two help me with something?” He waved them over before pulling the small door to his lair open with a creak and disappearing inside.

For a while, the only sound that broke the quiet was the muffled movements of Stella, Trick and Kenzi as they retreated downstairs, and their hushed and murmured voices while they spoke. Dyson watched Lauren, his expression one of understanding and patience, and Lauren only nursed her wine and mulled over her thoughts.

It was a few long moments before Lauren’s lips cracked into a humorless smile and she looked back up at Dyson. Her fingers lingered over the smooth edge of her glass, and as she drew in and released a long, deep sigh, her bottom lip quivered almost imperceptibly.

“D’you know,” Lauren paused, her words uncharacteristically slurred, and gave a sharp breath and swallowed. She pressed her lips together, closed her eyes, and Dyson struggled to keep his expression passive. Somewhere, somehow, over the last few weeks, the animosity between them had lessened, and he found that he was worried about the human’s wellbeing. It bothered him to see Lauren this way.

Lauren licked her lips and her smile tightened before she looked back up at Dyson. The smile almost reached her eyes. “Do you know that I have a hard time believing I found someone like Bo?” Her voice was forced, Dyson could hear the tension beneath her words, “That she even exists?”

Dyson returned her forced smile with a small one of his own and dropped his head. His elbows settled on the bar in front of him and he scooted to sit on a stool beside Lauren. “Yeah, I know what you mean,” he breathed. Lauren dropped her gaze from his and returned it to her glass of wine, she looked tired, and sad. It was strange, it had never occurred to Dyson before that he and Lauren could have something in common, could be anything alike, but now, they had something huge; an incredible, beautiful, heartbreaking experience that they alone shared. In a way, this made them the same. They’d been touched by the same grace, had felt the same excruciating love and loss at the hands of the same incredible woman.

He’d envied Lauren, for such a long time, looked down on her, thought her less than, but they were, in a single, life-changing way, exactly alike.

“We’re gonna need shots for this,” Dyson chuckled self-deprecatingly, and reached over the bar for the vodka Trick kept stashed just under the counter. Lauren gave a strained little laugh, her fingers played aimlessly across the surface of her wineglass, but her expression was tight with grief.

“Do you know that,” Lauren’s voice was tremulous, almost thin, “I thought you were the enemy for a while there.” The statement sounded almost like a question. Dyson stopped rummaging for the vodka and sat back, disturbed and disheartened by the tremor in Lauren’s voice. “That you were gonna swoop in and take her away…” Lauren’s attention wandered back to the wine between her hands. She hadn’t mourned yet, Dyson realized. They’d broken up, but she hadn’t mourned yet. No one had seen Lauren since the day before, since Bo had left her apartment in tears. No one had heard from her, she’d remained locked up in her apartment, alone and silent, until moments after Bo entered the Temple.

“Turns out I’ve done a fine job of screwing it up all by myself,” Lauren’s bitter words broke him from his belated realization. Lauren’s mouth was stretched in a tight, trembling line, she spared Dyson a short, unhappy glance, then turned back to her glass. Her fingers fidgeted with it, aimless and anxious and uncomfortable.

Dyson had never seen Lauren like this. The hard shell she wore never fell around him, and for the first time now, he was seeing her vulnerable. “For what it’s worth, she really does love you,” Dyson’s words fell to a whisper, “I can tell.”

His words were so sincere, Lauren’s gaze darted from the glass to stare in surprise at the Wolf that sat beside her. She hadn’t expected such compassion, such depth of understanding, from the man who’d been a thorn in her side and a perceived threat to her and her relationship with Bo. Not with such easy frankness. Lauren’s struggling composure faltered in the face of it, cracked, and fell away. She nodded reactively, struggled to respond, but her voice was swallowed, her words lost to the breathless hurt that pierced her heart and liquefied her insides. She drew in a deep, halting breath to gather herself. With Bo gone into the Dawning, without the help Lauren had been working tirelessly and unsuccessfully to provide, even after their difficult break up, Lauren was terrified. With Bo gone without even the knowledge, the assurance, that Lauren loved her, Lauren was heartbroken. The future, any future without Bo in it, seemed bleak and intolerable.

“Well,” Lauren choked out a humorless chuckle, “whatever happens, it’s not like she’s irreplaceably perfect, right?” Dyson mirrored her forlorn laugh, and Lauren went on, “She’s so stubborn.”

“She can be bitchy,” Dyson agreed. It brought a genuine laugh from Lauren, if small and soft, and Dyson watched her trail her fingers along the edge of her glass. She raised her head a little to stare off into the distance and smiled that sad, humorless smile that Dyson had felt on his own face more than once in his own troubled reminiscences of the woman he loved.

“Impetuous,” Lauren continued after a moment, then, “Brave,” and her voice trembled and cracked under the weight of her grief. The smile disappeared from her face, and she looked crestfallen again, broken and sad, and her chin, jutted forward a little against the pain he could plainly see in every line of her body, trembled. “Noblehearted,” Dyson agreed again. He’d been there. Not so long as a month ago, Dyson had been in the exact place, had stood in the very same shoes that Lauren stood in now, when the pain was still fresh and stark and piercing. Bo was the best thing that had ever happened to either of them, and they’d both lost her.

And then Lauren gave a small, breathy laugh. “Best sex I’ll ever have,” she chuckled softly, and Dyson laughed with her, “Gods, yes!”

And in the quiet, peaceful moments that followed, Lauren considered the Wolf that sat beside her. She looked at him, and instead of the rude, territorial, prejudiced Wolf she thought she knew, she saw a man who’d loved and been loved in the same boundless, eternal way by the same incredible woman. Who was still irrevocably in love with her. And who, instead of gloating or even ignoring her, had gone so far as to comfort her, to commiserate with her, to lay down his arms and appreciate the enormity of what they’d both loved and lost with a kindness and empathy she hadn’t suspected he’d been capable of. And it was another amazing thing that Bo had done for Lauren, and for Dyson. She’d brought together old enemies, and made them friends.

“How could I ever get over her?” The question that fell from Lauren’s lips sounded like a hopeless statement. She already knew the answer, knew that Dyson already knew the answer too, but in voicing it, had realized that she understood everything that Dyson had done with and for Bo, understood the way he fought with and beside her, understood every time he’d ever gotten furious, ever hated her, for any perceived wrong he thought Lauren had done Bo. Dyson smiled at her, his faded blue eyes shone with sad sympathy, regret, and compassion.

“I’ll let you know,” he whispered softly. They stared at each other a moment longer, Lauren’s light brown eyes, dark with the shadows that danced across her face and her unshed tears, and Dyson’s faded blue eyes full of understanding, and found within each other a well of sympathy, a powerful similarity, and a strange new trust and friendship.

“Shots!” Dyson recalled out loud, grinned boyishly at her, then rose out of his seat to rummage again for the vodka he’d been searching for earlier. His hands disappeared behind the bar for a minute, then reemerged triumphantly with the bottle in hand. He slid a shot glass to Lauren, poured them each a mouthful of the strong, clear liquid, and raised his glass in a silent toast.

Lauren smiled at him and raised her glass to his. Their glasses clinked softly in the warm, comfortable silence, and when the burning alcohol slid past her teeth and snaked down her throat, its heat warmed her insides, and Lauren found she felt a little better. A little less alone.

 

* * *

 

They had only a few minutes to sit in their companionable silence before Trick reemerged from his lair, with Stella and Kenzi in tow. Each were laden down with heavy tomes and books, and they all lined up behind the bar to drop them unceremoniously in front of Dyson and Lauren.

“If we’re gonna do this, I’m gonna need a beer,” Kenzi groaned. She pulled her arms out from under the heavy stack she’d held and massaged her arms pointedly. Trick smiled at her, almost despite himself, and turned to his taps to oblige.

“Do what?” Dyson looked a little confused. He pushed away his shot glass and leaned across the table to look at the books they’d brought upstairs, most of them were musty and worn, with yellowed pages and an old bittersweet book smell. Stella and Kenzi filtered out from behind the bar to scrape up stools on either side of Dyson and Lauren, and each pulled a book over to them and flipped it open.

“Research session: Scooby Style!” Kenzi announced with flair. She leaned around Lauren to stare across at Stella pointedly, “Okay, so Bo’s gone to her Dawning. You don’t have to be here anymore,” her words were sharp and harsh, Stella struggled not to wince at the animosity and bitterness that laced Kenzi’s tone. “I know workin’ with humans ain’t your style, Stell.”

Three sets of eyes swiveled to take in Stella’s reaction to the dismissal. Trick’s were troubled, he liked Stella, didn’t want her to feel unwelcome, or uncomfortable, and darted forward to assure her that her help was both wanted and needed. Her long, elegant fingers fluttered across his outstretched arm reassuringly.

“I didn’t have to help Bo to begin with. But I finish what I start, and will not leave until what I’ve started is finished.” Her voice and expression remained passive, and everyone but Kenzi breathed silent sighs of relief at the calmness of Stella’s reaction. Nonplussed, Kenzi shrugged, though her glare lingered on Stella for a moment longer, before she turned to her book and the cold beer Trick had left her.

Dyson pulled a heavy, cracking tome in front of him, opened it carefully and trailed his fingers along the page. The sweet, musty scent of rotting pages and moldy bindings wafted across his senses, and the ink scrawled across the page felt smooth and almost oily under his fingertips. The text was an old, antiquated dialect of Celtic, almost illegible in its age and penmanship, and the pictures depicted seemingly at random throughout the book looked like old wood-prints. The ink had turned almost brown with age.

“These things are falling apart,” Dyson muttered, and then raised his voice for everyone to hear, “So the information we’re looking for may or may not be in one of these books. How are we supposed to find it? It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

“Or a Fae in a bookstack,” Kenzi snorted. The pages of her own book creaked in agreement.

“We know Bo’s father is old. We know he’s Dark. And we know he can alter reality – or play with the perceptions of the people around him,” Lauren offered, already absorbed in her own cracked yellowing volume.

“He changed the way the ballroom at O’Meara’s looked,” Maia’s voice rang across the empty bar, startling the researchers into spinning around on their stools to look at her. The door slammed against the wall as she pulled herself in, laptop under one arm and another heavy leather-bound book under the other. She scuttled through the door, giving room for a second lithe form to filter in. Tamsin paused at the threshold, staring about her at the rearrangement of furniture, but Maia shuffled up to the bar without hesitation, and with a heave, deposited her burdens on top.

Lauren stared at Maia. The skinny human shook her casted arm out, as if shaking out the pain and the kinks that came with carrying a heavy load, then looked back at her and offered a small smile. Everyone was staring between the two new-comers.

“What? We can’t help?” Maia shrugged, digging her fingers deep into her cast to scrape away at an itch and looking through the corners of her eyes at the people lined at the bar beside her. “She saved my life – tried to save Seth. Least I can do,” she muttered. Kenzi grinned at the bedraggled human and gave her a gentle punch to the shoulder in greeting.

“He also somehow managed to fake the Doc’s test results,” Tamsin’s voice rang across the emptied floor of the Dal, it sounded jarring and somehow out of place. Tamsin shifted uncomfortably before striding to the bar beside Maia, “down in the dungeon, before we got there.” She looked like she might say something more, her lips slightly parted with the words she meant to utter, and then closed her mouth and didn’t. She shrugged and stared down at the floor, unable, or unwilling, to offer anything more.

“You know about that?” Lauren asked, her tone soft and incredulous. She frowned at Tamsin, her expression suspicious and distinctly unhappy, but Tamsin shrugged back at her and turned her gaze on Maia, who shrugged in turn and looked pointedly at Kenzi.

“What? Not like it was a secret anymore or anything,” Kenzi muttered. She turned to frown studiously down at the book in front of her, ignoring the raised eyebrows and pursed mouths directed at her, and cleared her throat.

“Okay, so someone who can alter reality,” Trick summarized, breaking the tension that mounted around the girls with a few words and the clearing of his throat. Maia shook out her casted arm one more time before pulling her laptop open and powering it on, the pale, artificial light of the screen bathed the room in faded blue and white, and Maia settled on a stool in front of it. “Someone who’s Dark,” Trick continued, pulling a tome of his own in front of him and flipping the binding open, “and someone who’s very old.”

“What do you think he wants with Bo?” Dyson squinted down at his tome, trying to make out the faded letters and symbols on the page.

“Considering how powerful she is, how powerful she can be, provided she proves herself in her Dawning,” Stella sighed, “I would suggest he’s looking to wage some sort of war.”

“But on who? And for what?” Lauren’s voice was soft, but clear, and sounded as steady and professional as ever. She slipped her fingers through the cracked pages of another book, caressed the script, swollen over the yellowing paper, and forced herself to focus on the task at hand.

“And whose side is he on?” Kenzi was already flipping through the pages of her own book. It lay across her outstretched arms, looking comically large and almost too heavy for the petite woman to hold upright. It was an enormous, pertinent question, but one they would not be able to answer until all other questions were met. A shiver passed through the room, given the power this Fae seemed to have, given the power that Bo had, if he were truly intending to wage some sort of war, everything and everyone would be in terrible danger. Especially were he to be waging war on them.

They worked for hours, spreading books out over the bar, the floor, and other tables. Trick dragged in an enormous white board, no one knew or asked from where, and slowly, they added names and theories to the list. Maia tapped away on the keyboard, clicked on link after link, accumulated page after page of whatever information she could find over the web, and they all sprawled out around her, poring over their books. Their eyes blurred with exhaustion, and the minutes ticked away. And no one knew how long it had been before a pale blue glow slowly began to lick across the far side of the Dal, over the forgotten bowls of water and sweet-smelling flowers. Tendrils of light grew and waved in a vortex over thin air, until the strengthening glimmer shone over their faces and illuminated their pages, and the subtle smell of humid, fleshy heat overpowered that of the candles burning in their sconces.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These past couple of chapters have been somewhat short, I know. Worry not: starting next week, I’ll be posting twice a week for a month. We’re nearing the end of this story, folks. Get ready for some turbulence, it’s going to be a bumpy landing!


	22. Chapter 22

**“Bo?” The voice sounded far away at first, entirely alien and intimately familiar, all at once, and it sang her name almost sweetly, calling, “Bo… Bo?” The single syllable of her name dragged out, it trilled over the thrumming cold of the darkness that surrounded her, that slowly ate away at her. Bo considered answering it, but eventually decided not to. She’d committed herself to giving the darkness what it wanted: her. It frayed at her consciousness, slowly, surely, and Bo allowed it to, allowed it to consume her. She didn’t want this life anymore, didn’t want the empty shallowness of it, and the dark promised to take it away, painlessly, seamlessly.**

**Still, the voice called, “Bo…” and every time it sang her name, it sounded closer and closer, until Bo wearily answered back, “Yes?”**

**It was a resigned response. Bo’s memories slipped through the empty existence that lapped like black water over her. She knew that it was her name, knew that it called for her, but couldn’t guess why. Or couldn’t be bothered to guess, anyway.**

**“Wake up, sleepy-head!” It giggled playfully. It sounded so familiar now, so much like what she thought her own voice had once sounded like, but older. “Bo…” No, maybe not her own voice, but the voice of someone she’d almost loved and completely lost. Not Lauren, Lauren would never call her name again, and Bo remembered absently that this was exactly why she’d given herself away, to be consumed by the dark, by the devolution that would surely follow. Nothing else mattered.**

**She tried to ignore the insistent call, the teasing inflection of the sound of her name, called over and over again in a voice she began to recognize so well she thought she just might answer. But the darkness called too, in a deeper, more sinister voice. It promised peace, an end to the miserable, evil-riddled life she’d led.**

**Still, the voice was strong. “Bo! Wake up!” It called again, and now it sounded like it was coming from right beside her ear. She could almost feel a breath whisper across her cheek. It was the first physical sensation she’d felt, aside from the numbing, hungry cold that curled into every crevice and chipped away at her. “You’ve slept long enough, Bo. Time to wake up, smell the coffee. Or the cookies.”**

**Now the voice sounded like it was coming from inside her head, and her head suddenly throbbed. She could taste a strange dry bitterness in her mouth; it was foul, that flavor, and her tongue was sticky and parched, almost cotton-y in texture. Her head pounded, and her limbs ached, but not with the cold that was slowly beginning to recede, almost disappointedly.**

**“Open your eyes,” the voice said, and Bo thought it was the voice of her mother. Of Aife. But Aife was gone, wasn’t she? Perhaps not dead, she and Kenzi had never found the body, and Bo had a nagging feeling ever since that her mother was still out there, healing, biding her time. The shock of hearing her mother’s voice so close kick-started her heart, and before Bo knew it, her eyes fluttered open.**

 

* * *

 

“Bo, it’s time to wake up,” the voice was no longer inside her head now, but came from somewhere close in front of her. Bo struggled to lick her lips, they were dry and cracking, but her tongue was parched too, and she only succeeded in sticking it out far enough to feel cool air caress the tip. The surface she lay on dipped beside her, as if accepting another weight.

“That’s it, sweetheart. Open your eyes, mummy’s here,” her voice was so soothing, sweet and cajoling. And when Bo obeyed and forced her eyes open, the figure in front of her was blurry, but Bo couldn’t mistake it for anyone else. Groggily, Bo scrubbed at her eyes with the base of her hand and pulled herself to sit up. Her muscles ached terribly, and felt heavy and uncoordinated. A smile and a pair of familiar brown eyes swam into view.

“Mom?” Bo’s voice sounded cracked and weak, even to her own ears. A gentle pair of hands pulled her up to sit comfortably against… what felt like goose-down pillows. Another burly, heavily muscled body hovered close to Bo’s left, and a half-naked man bent over to offer her a glass of water from a silver tray.

“Thank you,” Aife murmured to him, and though Bo’s vision was still fuzzy and muddled, she caught the flirtatious wink and teasing glimmer in Aife’s eyes when she took the glass off the tray and grinned at her Thrall. Immediately, the mindless muscle-man receded from view, and Aife held the glass gingerly to Bo’s dry mouth and dribbled cool water over her lips. Bo drank it down greedily, took the glass in her own hands and downed it so fast she felt the water cool her throat and crash down her insides. Her stomach chugged when she struggled to sit up straighter.

“There you are, sugar-pie, safe and sound and awake,” Aife crooned. Tenderly, she reached up to tuck a stray lock of hair behind Bo’s ear, and Bo gave her head a sharp shake and put the glass down on the table beside her. She squinted against the blinding sunlight that poured into the room, but she could still see well enough through her heavily dilated pupils that she was in a bedroom, lying on an enormous king-sized bed, that there was a small table beside her, a lavish dresser and vanity across the room from her, and that three of the five walls of the room were flanked by floor-to-ceiling windows. White linen drapes billowed with the subtle breeze that wove through the cracked open panes, and though the breeze was cool, the sun’s light was warm, and Bo felt cozy and comfortable. Aife waited patiently now for her daughter to get her bearings, she only sat beside her and watched her carefully.

“What am I doing here?” Bo’s vision was slowly settling, and the light that poured through the windows didn’t feel quite so blinding. Her voice sounded stronger too, still a little dry and cracked, but it was steadying and gaining force. Aife smiled at her, her expression sympathetic, but not pitying, sweet, but not deceptive.

“You were going away, but now you’re back. At least for now,” Aife responded without really answering, but strangely, to Bo, it didn’t sound cryptic at all. “I thought we could talk,” she continued, her voice soft, but very real.

“If you wanted to talk, you didn’t have to drug me to get me to listen,” Bo answered sharply. Her head still swam, and this all felt a little too familiar to her, even in her groggy, confused state. “Wait, didn’t we already do this?”

“We did,” Aife said with a nod, “but we can do it again, if that’s what you need.”

Bo took another moment to gather herself. She drew in a breath, the air here smelled like clean sheets and freshly cut grass. The low-throated growl of a lawn-mower drifted in from somewhere outside. The light faded a little, shadowed over, as if thick clouds had scudded over the sun, and then brightened again. The soft satin sheets rustled under her when Bo shifted. They were a light, faded purple, and the room was treated with playful pastels: cream for the walls, pale purple for the sheets, a light, sandy grain for the wood of the table and dresser and floor. A deep purple velvet afghan was thrown across Bo’s legs.

“You never told me about my father,” Bo quietly accused. She didn’t know why this was important, but somehow, she knew that it was. Aife’s mouth, turned upward at the edges in an affectionate smile, tightened, and her brow crinkled with distaste.

“And I won’t,” Aife’s voice was sharp and defensive, it rang painfully in Bo’s ears and sent a stabbing pain shooting behind her eyes. Bo winced against it, and Aife’s expression softened a little. “It was an unpleasant episode in my life, and I won’t rehash it, even for you.”

“Then what will you rehash?” Bo’s tone was sulky, angry. People were always keeping secrets from her, telling her lies, presumably for her own good, but when had they ever done her anything but harm? Bo shifted on the bed to face Aife, and Aife scooted backward a little to give her space, but draped a hand pacifyingly over Bo’s knee.

“Your memories,” Aife whispered softly, “your difficult, sometimes false, memories.”

“What do you know about my memories?” Bo was feeling less petulant, but still a little short-tempered. A conversation about memories, from a woman who had abandoned her to share them with someone else? It would have been comical, if it wasn’t so hurtful and cruel.

“I know you remember killing Lauren.” Aife’s statement was so matter-of-fact, so calmly, candidly spoken, Bo felt the air flee her lungs and her stomach collapse under the weight of it. Lauren’s face, frozen in death but still smiling insensibly up at her flashed in her vision. The sensation of her hair tickling her nose, of her cold, stiff body curled against Bo’s, slid revoltingly, painfully across Bo’s skin, and Bo shuddered and shivered, and remembered giving herself up to a dark emptiness that promised salvation, but gave only death.

Bo tried to draw in a shuddering breath, but a barrage of emotions had attacked her, and her throat was constricted painfully again, and absently, Bo knew she was shaking and rocking against the memories that flooded her.

“Breathe, baby. Look at me, look into my eyes!” Aife’s voice was so strong, so commanding, Bo couldn’t help but obey. The warm brown-ness, a color so similar to Lauren’s eyes that it sent another icy lance of pain spearing through her broken heart, conquered her, forced her to calm. Warm hands held Bo’s shoulders, Aife was straddling her now, and showing her with willful exaggeration exactly how to breathe. Bo mimicked her compulsively.

When Bo’s breathing started to steady, Aife backed away a little to give her space.

“That was a false memory, Bo,” she spoke slowly, calmly, and didn’t break eye-contact for a second. Bo stared into her familiar brown eyes and forced herself to believe her, though nothing but lies had ever come from her mother’s mouth. “Think about it, sugar.”

Bo felt dizzy, but she was breathing on her own again, and though her stomach clenched and unclenched, and the taste of watery bile filled her mouth, Bo thought she could trust herself again to speak.

“I did it all wrong,” she rasped, “I couldn’t control the monster inside of me…” Bo shuddered again, but clung desperately to sanity, “Mom, I need to know who my father is. Please!” she begged, her voice still weak and shaky. Aife smiled sadly at her, then settled again beside her. A warm, strong arm wound around Bo’s shoulders and pulled her close.

“No, you don’t,” Aife murmured into Bo’s hair. Aife’s breath wafted across Bo’s face, a cloud of sweet-smelling life that almost felt damp against Bo’s forehead.

“What if he’s a monster, Mom?” Bo struggled to contain her fear, her self-loathing, “what does that make me?”

“It doesn’t make you anything, Bo,” Aife’s voice was soothing, but Bo wasn’t satisfied.

“I am a monster, Mom. I killed her, I killed Lauren,” Bo’s voice was rising with her panic, and Aife had to coach her to breathe again, and as soon as she could, Bo continued, “I hurt everyone around me, everyone that I love –“

“Bo,” Aife interrupted her, and it was the first time Bo had ever heard Aife take such a maternal tone with her, “You are only a monster if you choose to be.” Aife pulled Bo’s head around with the gentle force of her thumb under Bo’s chin to force Bo to look at her. Bo’s lip trembled for a moment, then steadied, and Bo drew in a deep breath to calm the frantic beating of her own heart.

“I killed Lauren, Mom. I killed the woman that I love, with the thing that makes me not human,” Bo’s breath hitched, and she had to draw in another long, steadying breath before she went on, “I hurt her, I betrayed her. I betrayed everything that we are, over and over again. How can I be anything but a monster? I should have let the darkness take me.”

“And devolve?” Aife’s voice was skeptical. She nudged Bo’s chin again when Bo’s eyes fluttered closed, “Look at me,” she ordered, though her tone was gentle. “If you let the darkness take you, you would have devolved. You would have returned from your Dawning a monster, just the way you believe that you are. It is a choice that you make, not something you are born.”

Bo had to marvel for a moment at the maternal way Aife spoke to her. The last time she’d seen her mother, she’d tried to kill her. The strange switch from would-be killer to mother was baffling, startling, but not unwelcome. Bo reached up to grasp her mother’s hand and pull it away from her face, and held together, they fell to the space between them on the bed.

“So you chose to be a monster, then?” Bo regretted the harsh choice of words when Aife sucked in a sharp breath, “You tried to kill me, Mom,” she sounded almost apologetic now, “you killed a lot of people, almost destroyed the Light Fae. You wanted to destroy all the Fae, make yourself their new religion,” Bo paused, Aife’s eyes had closed, and the expression that crossed her face looked almost repentant, “remember?”

“We’re not talking about my life choices now,” Aife replied softly, “we’re talking about yours. Bo, you still have a choice.”

Bo sighed. How could her mother ever understand how damaging the choices she’d already made were to her soul? Her mother had already committed to the vengeful path she’d chosen for herself; the murder of a lover, of friends and family, would seem like nothing to a woman who’d tried to kill her own daughter to further her plans of complete take-over and annihilation. Bo had already made her choices too – whether consciously or not. She’d killed Lauren, killed Trick, allowed Kenzi to be taken by the rapist that drugged her up at that hotel bar…

Suddenly, searing pain split across her skull. Two Laurens broke apart in her head, both of them screaming accusations, each of a different nature, at her. Two Tricks, two Kenzis… two different paths, many sets of different events broke apart, two worlds, many worlds, that lived layered atop each other, all of them possibilities and realities at once.

Bo slapped her hand to her forehead, her eyes screwed shut against the intensity of the pain that ravaged her skull. Nothing made sense, nothing felt right. Even the warm sunlight that cascaded through the partly open windows and bathed her in its rich, golden light felt artificial and unreal.

“Tell me…” Bo gasped against the blinding agony that speared through her head and clenched at her heart. Lauren’s tawny eyes gazed at her through Bo’s closed eyelids, waiting, patient, sad, and tired, and Bo just wanted to reach out to them, to hold the woman that she loved with every fiber of her being… but Lauren was dead. Bo had killed her. “Tell me about Lauren!”

Aife’s voice tittered in a light laugh somewhere beside Bo, but Bo couldn’t open her eyes again to look at her mother. The sensation of light kissing her skin faded into nothingness, and a hungry, insatiable cold swept through the cracked open windows into the room. “What do you want me to tell you?” Aife’s voice whispered against her ear.

“Tell me she’s not dead!” Bo’s voice was choked and muffled, as if through layers and layers of thick cloth. It was hard to get the words out, and a dull ache throbbed in Bo’s chest, making it hard for Bo to breathe again. This time, Aife’s reassuring weight didn’t settle atop her to coach her to breathe. Only a layer of icy cold fluttered against Bo’s skin. She couldn’t feel the light, subtle weight of the deep purple afghan across her legs anymore.

“I can tell you anything you want, sugar-pie, but my words don’t make them real,” Aife’s words were a breath that Bo felt more than heard. Bo didn’t need to open her eyes now to know the room she’d woken in had faded away into an all-consuming blackness. Lauren’s face crept across Bo’s vision, the sensation of her skin against Bo’s, of her salty tears on Bo’s fingers and cheeks, were all Bo felt, all she wanted to feel. “Only your decisions, your belief, makes it real.”

Aife’s voice rang softly, the light peal of a delicate bell that hummed across the blackening expanse. An image, a memory maybe, tore across Bo’s mind, heart-breaking and humbling, and Bo wanted to go running, sprinting into it. Because in this memory, Lauren was still alive, at least.

“See, baby? All the paths that you can take, all the paths you could have taken: they’re all laid out before you. You still have a choice.”

Aife’s voice sounded far away again, but somehow simultaneously inside Bo’s head.

“You’re not a monster until you choose to be.”

That voice, strangely familiar and familiarly alien, echoed in Bo’s screaming, pounding head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since the next set of chapters are going to be relatively short, I will be posting updates twice a week for about a month. Updates will be coming Tuesdays and Fridays, so keep a weather eye out for another update on Friday!


	23. Chapter 23

**Lauren was still alive. Bo clung to that desperate thought, that desperate idea, like it was all that mattered in the frozen, bitter expanse she existed in. Because it was. Lauren was still alive, somewhere, in some reality. And the reality in which Lauren still lived was the only reality Bo wanted for herself. It was a bad, bitter memory, full of pain and breathless anguish, and Bo knew that in it, she’d broken both their hearts and that Lauren was no longer hers. But Lauren was alive. And if Bo got back to her, got back to the woman that made her heart sing and her skin tingle and her heart beat, even if it was the last thing she ever did, even if it killed her, Bo would fight to bring Lauren back to her side. She would do anything to feel Lauren’s skin against hers, to hear Lauren’s voice, to smell the rich, sweet, honeysuckle scent of her.**

**The first stirrings of rebellion moved in Bo, for the first time since she’d arrived in this frozen hell. She had something to fight for. Still, she felt so weak, so tired. She didn’t have the energy to fight, didn’t have the strength. And doubt murmured through her veins, squirmed in her gut and left her feeling breathless, and her chest ached with the cold that surrounded her and bit at her, slowly still, but steadily. Did Lauren even want her to fight for their love? Lauren hadn’t been happy. And it hadn’t come as a surprise to Bo, after everything that Bo had done to her. The last time Bo had seen her, she looked so defeated, and Bo had done nothing to ease Lauren’s mind, to assuage her fears and insecurities. She’d thrown a fit instead, like a petulant child, and run away. But Lauren had been tired, too. So much had happened to Lauren, because of Bo. The Garuda, Nadia… then O’Meara and the grisly, heartbreakingly unfaithful events at his mansion… If Bo had never arrived, had never appeared in Lauren’s life, would Lauren have been the happier, the better off for it? And Lauren wasn’t Bo’s only victim – she had killed so many: slaughtered them, devoured them. She had left a string of bodies behind her, countless people she’d preyed on since Kyle, her first. And Bo was so ashamed to admit that she couldn’t even remember all their names.**

**Perhaps it was enough that Lauren lived… And Bo could fade into nothing a little less miserably with the sheer knowledge of that. She was just too tired to fight… and the air smelled stale and her whole body felt sticky and hot. Weight pressed down on her, the weight of all the men and women she’d killed over the years. They begged her to lie down under it, and her hands were slick and red with so much blood. Maybe it was better not to fight. It was too hard. It was too painful. And Bo was so tired…**

 

 

* * *

 

The air was stale. Bo knew the instant that her knife had plunged into her father’s belly that she’d killed him, but for some strange reason, after she’d dragged her blade up through his chest, she held it there, and for a moment all she knew was that the air smelled stale.

His arms were wrapped around her shoulders, his sword still hung loosely at her back. She could feel the blade tickle her between her shoulder-blades. Its tip bumped uselessly against the backs of her thighs. His breath was loud and hot and shallow in her ears, a heavy, whooshing sound that would have sounded like the ocean were they not his final breaths. Hot stickiness spread between them both, staining Bo’s skin and clothes a warm, vibrant red. It was the most violent embrace Bo had ever accepted. Somehow, despite this, she wished it would never end.

He leaned against her; Bo knew his legs, and his strength, were fading. Clumsily, she unraveled the fingers of one hand from the hilt of her dagger, and yanked her arm out from between them. Carefully, almost tenderly, she wrapped it around him, offering him support, returning his embrace in his final moments with her. Her heart felt dead in her chest, and though she could feel it, could hear it, beating clearly, thunderously within her only seconds ago, it had gone still, and Bo was numb now. Dimly, she realized her own breathing was shallow, and the bottom rims of her eyelids felt heavy with what could only be tears.

They stumbled a little together, he was leaning more heavily on her now, and his weight was too much for Bo to hold up alone. The marble floor beneath them was slippery with blood, some of it their own, some of it from the dead Redcaps, the dying Walter, her injured friends, her many dead, that were scattered along the perimeter of the foyer. Bo heard herself give a sharp gasp, felt the wet tickle of a tear spill across her cheek, and struggled to hold her father up for just a little longer.

“Jack…” she whispered, so softly, she knew the breath that brushed the nape of his neck went unheard. The crash of his failing heartbeat must be too loud now for him to hear anything beyond it. Her arms ached with the effort it took to hold him up, her calf burned and throbbed where he’d sliced it open, and the infection he’d started, that spread swiftly through her veins, was like fire under her skin.

“Isabeau,” he gurgled into her ear, “my little girl,” he gave a wet, hacking cough, and they both slipped and slid together to their knees. Bo’s back strained under his weight, her heart strained against the pain and pride in his voice. She could feel a slow smile curl across his lips, pressed as they were against her neck. “We’re so very proud of you,” his voice was a rough, wet husk in her ear. Warm moisture splattered her skin where his mouth met her throat. His weight was wholly on her now, he had no strength left to carry himself. But somehow, the sword still dangled down her shoulders. Bo hated the esteem that colored his dying voice. She had killed him, he should be angry, bitter, but instead, he loved her. Resentment ballooned in her chest.

“Who’s we?” she demanded sharply, her own voice sounding scratched and faded, little more than a gasp that didn’t even move the short hairs on the nape of his neck. He shuddered and convulsed with what Bo thought might have been a chuckle, and the sword he stubbornly clung to finally clattered to the floor. The flat of the blade bounced painfully against the slash across her calf, but Bo ignored the sharp agony that speared across her leg. “Who’s we?!” she demanded again, when he offered her no answer. His arms, limply thrown over her shoulders, stirred with what little vitality still circulated through his system and tightened slightly around her.

“You are so strong, my child,” he rasped. More droplets of hot blood splattered across Bo’s skin, a harsh reminder that she’d killed the man that had claimed her as family. “Not just as a Succubus,” he continued, spluttering over the blood that flooded his chest and throat, “not just as Fae, but as a woman.”

“I’m so tired of being strong,” Bo whispered into the nape of his neck, tears stung her eyes, and her voice sounded weak and tired, even to her own ears. Her father’s blood crept into the crevices between her fingers and nails, and she knew she would never be able to wash it out, just like she would never be able to wash Nadia’s blood out, and the blood of all the people she’d killed over the ten years she spent running from herself. The warm, coppery smell of it burned in her nostrils, even past the sweet scent of spearmints and the clean smell of her father’s soap. He smelled like Sam, her adopted father, and Bo had never missed him more than she did now. She wished she could go home, wished the darkness would take her so she could forget this, forget all of it.

“I know, sweet girl,” he hummed quietly into her shoulder, “but you must be strong. You have so much ahead of you.” With lips warm and wet with blood, he left a lingering kiss against her skin that brought fresh tears to Bo’s eyes and her fingers clenched into his jacket tightly. He sounded like Sam now, his voice warm and fatherly, and Bo’s throat tightened with the sob that ached for release.

In a way, this was how she wanted her father. With his arms around her and his kind, sweet voice whispering love and assurances into her ear. But her father was dead, Bo had killed him. Like she’d killed Lauren. Like she’d killed Trick. She tightened her hold on Jack, even as he weighed down on her, desperate to hold on to him for a little longer, desperate to have a father that loved her, that was proud of her, even for a few moments longer.

“Bo, we’re so very proud of you,” his harsh, whispering voice echoed Trick’s when he sent her into her Dawning, it brought another gut-wrenching sob to Bo’s lips that shuddered between them, “you’ve been through so much in the past few years…” he sighed, and warm droplets of blood spattered gently across Bo’s skin again. Her fingers tightened over the creases of his collar, curled around the lapel, and felt warm flesh. His skin was hot against hers, damp with sweat from their short, furious battle. “Dad,” she whimpered, frightened, desperate for him to stop talking, to sound less like Sam, to let her hate him so this wouldn’t hurt so much. He gathered his breath, and went on.

“You’ve always stayed true to yourself. There’s a battle coming Bo,” he stopped, coughed up more blood, and Bo squeezed her eyes shut against the despair that shook her and stole her breath. No more battles… no more pain, no more sorrow. She just wanted to rest, nothing could be worth fighting for anymore. Not without him, without Lauren, without Trick and Kenzi.

“I don’t want to fight anymore,” she whimpered into his skin. Blood still dripped between them, she struggled to hold them both up on her knees, but they hurt against the hard, soaked marble floors. She was surrounded by blood, saturated in it. The blood of her enemies, the blood of her friends, the blood of her father, the blood of her mother. Weariness seeped into her bones. “I don’t want to kill anymore. What is there for you to be proud of? I’ve let everyone I love down. I’ve let everyone I love die.”

Bo cracked her eyes open to peek past the short hairs on the back of her father’s neck to stare at the room around them. The air was painted red in rough, hurried strokes. The drapes hung limp, heavy with the blood that spattered them. The floor was a shallow pool of blood. Bodies littered the floor around the walls and door. Walter stared at her through dulling eyes, watched while she embraced his master in his final moments with no fear, no pain, no anguish, nothing but a vague senselessness. The faces of her rescuers were frozen in horror, dark with the blackness that stole across their indescribable features. The darkness was coming for her, it promised peace and quiet, an end to the madness and pain that had punctuated her life. Soon, Jack would be joining it. He would rest. How could he ask her to fight, when he wouldn’t have to?

A slow, broken laugh burbled its way through Jack’s body, held tightly in Bo’s embrace. His arms over her shoulders fell around her, then wrapped around Bo’s body and held her close. If Bo could die now, with the sound of her father’s laughter fading in her ears and his arms wrapped around her, she would be okay. It was something. It wasn’t everything, it wouldn’t make her happy. But it was something.

“Bo, think, sweet girl,” Sam’s voice was a little stronger, a little louder in her ears. His breath was cool and dry against her skin. “Who has died? I am not your father, child. I am an imposter, a man who claimed relation to you when I had none, who threatened you, the wellbeing of the woman you loved, who killed the beloved of a girl you swore to protect and kidnapped the girl who you love as a sister.”

Even with her eyes open, images flashed across her blood-stained vision. As quickly as they came, they were gone, and Jack’s arms hung limply over her shoulders again.

“There is a battle coming, Bo,” his breath was wet with warm blood again, and his weight pressed down on Bo until she leaned under it. They slid until her backside pressed against the flat of his blade, hot still with the blood he’d spilled from her own leg. “You have to fight,” his voice was a thin rasp in her ear, weak and small, but Bo could hear the power beneath it, “you are a warrior. You are a Champion.”

His weight over her became too much. They collapsed to the bloodied floor, she convulsed under him with the desperate sobs that shook her, with the exhaustion of carrying the weight of the world, of all her dead, on her shoulders. He was a warm, heavy weight over her, and Bo clutched at his jacket, ripped under her fingers and seeping hot blood into her skin, to keep him there. She didn’t want to let him go, to lose anyone else that had been important to her, that loved her, even if he’d only loved her for a short while.

“Isabeau, sweet child,” his voice shivered against her skin, his head was propped against her chest, and she cradled it there with shaking fingers, bent halfway over him, trapped halfway under him, and kissed his hard, angled cheek, “you are the Foundling, the Chosen One,” they were his dying breaths, Bo could hear the end swiftly approaching in them, could hear the darkness creeping into the empty spaces between his words, and his voice sounded like Sam’s, and like hers, all at once, “there is a battle coming, Bo, and it’s your battle.” He sighed, and Bo kissed his cheek again. She didn’t want to lose him, not now, not when she was finally learning to love him, and the calm, strong support he offered her in the face of his own demise at her hands. “It’s your fight. You’re a warrior, and we’re so proud of you for it. It’s time to fight, Bo,” his breath stopped, his mouth hung open a little, and Bo pulled her arm around to brush her thumb over the dip in his chin and trace the lines of his mouth. The fingers of her other hand were still clutched tightly over the hilt of her dagger. His eyes glazed over in death, but his lips curled at the corners in a confident smile.

“It’s time to wake up.”


	24. Chapter 24

**The cold swirled around her, everywhere at once. It crept between the crevices, chilled her fingers, dried the blood that caked there and burned it away so that she was clean again. But Bo knew, in this empty black darkness, that she would never truly be clean again. She was soaked in blood.**

**She could hear her heart beat now, rapid and irregular. It thumped in her ears, pulsed in her wrists, stirred in her chest. She had so many dead at her hands… would they die for nothing? Would they die to feed the monster she would become if she devolved, or would Bo do as her father bid her and fight? She had said once, in a memory so old and faded it seemed surreal, that the body count she’d racked up had been tallied out of a need to survive, to defend herself. But those who meant to die had no need for survival, or self-defense.**

**The cold whined in Bo’s ears. It cried to her, begged her to calm, to forget, to sleep, so that it could take what it needed from her and leave her to rest. Though Bo was tempted to let it have what it so desperately wanted, she could feel a struggle rise to her tired, numbed limbs that screamed for release. Bo wanted to fight. She wanted to matter before she died, she wanted those that had died at her hands for her survival to mean something. Rebellion stirred again within her, her heartbeat strengthened a little with her resolve and hammered in her breast, and she grit her teeth and tensed with it.**

**She had some life, some fight, left within her still. As long as Bo lived, she would have that fight. She would fight for Lauren, for Trick, for Kenzi, for Dyson. But ultimately, what would that mean? The darkness whispered in her ears, trying to soothe the panic that built slowly inside her and gave her the strength to struggle. She was the unaligned Succubus… what would she fight for? The right to continue killing, as she saw fit, for whatever wayward cause suited her? Was that truly just? Bo let out a slow, desperate sob and clenched herself against the frigid darkness that ate away at her. She could fight, but without a direction, any dead she took would only be murder. And the blood that stained her hands would sink deeper and deeper, until she devolved anyway, later rather than sooner. Cold air brushed against her skin, her legs felt heavy and tired, and her breath came in shorter and shorter gasps, and she was running, hiding away from something that would find her eventually…**

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The house was massive, the halls were never-ending. Bo ran through countless corridors, past countless rooms, up countless steps, until she found herself cornered at the balcony of the highest floor, overlooking the foyer into which she’d burst minutes ago to find Aife, her mother. The white stucco walls crowded into a low vaulted roof over her head, and the brass banister under her hands was cold. Her breath came in short, hurried gasps from the hard run she’d put herself through. She could hear Aife’s footsteps tap against the floor as she drew nearer and nearer, and Bo’s heart slammed in her ribcage with every step.

“Where are you going? Why are you resisting?” Aife’s voice was close behind, just around the last corner Bo had swept past, and it was almost pleading, “You’re my daughter.” Bo spun around to find herself face to face with Aife. She had abandoned the fury that lit her eyes, and looked more like the woman she’d spent the first part of her day with – warm, curious, and beautiful. But the glint in her eyes was more mad than sane.

“Because I know there’s good in you,” Bo backed into the banister slowly, distrustful of the conciliatory expression her mother wore, but desperate to find a way to get through to her mom, to bring her back to the Light Fae compound and keep her as safe as she could. They stared at each other for a moment, and Aife’s mild expression stretched into a smile that was cold and emotionless. And then Aife lunged for her neck, and Bo was thrown halfway across the banister.

She struggled against Aife’s hands, they were locked tightly around her throat, and Aife grappled her over the railing, half-way holding her up, half-way shoving her over the side. Bo struggled to breathe past Aife’s fingers, tried to push her chin down to create space enough for air to travel to and from her lungs, but Aife was too strong. Her hair dangled behind her, and Bo’s heart beat like a hammer in her chest at the sensation of nothing but air at her back, and the knowledge that there were a dozen floors between her and the end of the drop.

And then warm, living power surged through her, it screamed through her muscles, burst into her lungs, her chest, her heart, and heat skittered across her skin, and with a strength Bo knew she didn’t possess, she shoved her whole body up against her mother and spun. The force of it flipped them around, and without realizing what she was doing, Bo slammed her mother against the railing Aife had been holding her over. With a shrill scream, it broke, the steel split from a supporting bar, and like a giant, finely decorated rind, peeled away, and Aife tumbled over the edge. Her hair flew in an arc around her face, her hands flailed for a lifeline, and her breath left her lungs in a long, drawn out cry of surprise as she fell.

Bo flew forward again, with one arm grappling the cold, swaying remains of the banister and the other shooting out to snatch at Aife’s arm. Her fingers clamped around a wrist, and the force of her mother’s weight threatened to pull her along for an instant. But Bo yanked back and dug her knee and heel into the floor and her muscles screamed again with the strength it took to hold both herself and her mother up together. Aife dangled from her arm alone, and the floor a dozen stories down seemed to shrink away.

“Hold on, don’t let go!” Bo gasped, her breath came in frenzied bursts as her lungs attempted to refill themselves with fresh oxygen and her body strained with the weight she was carrying.

“I won’t!” her mother screamed up at her, and her fingers tightened painfully around Bo’s wrist. Sharp nails dug ruthlessly into the arm of Bo’s jacket, so hard Bo could feel their edges dig into her skin and bruise her. Madly, Aife laughed, with her head thrown back and her hair swaying with her momentum, and her eyes, when they focused on Bo’s, blazed with her insanity, “I’ll take you with me!”

Bo’s knees hurt. Her muscles strained against their combined weight, the ankle she balanced on screamed in pain against it. Still, she grit her teeth and held on, damned if she let her mother go, let her mother die, regardless of the atrocities she’d committed. Aife was still her mother.

“Bo!”

Bo’s eyes were squeezed shut with the effort it took her to carry her mother, but Aife’s voice when she screamed Bo’s name now was so remarkably different, Bo’s eyes flew open and she stared down at her mom, her face twisted in fear and strain.

“Do you remember the day you found out about the Fae?” Aife had to shout to be heard over the blood rushing loudly in her ears, and in Bo’s. Bo sucked in a breath, as much from the memory as to hold on to the strength she needed to carry her mom. “Do you remember what you said when they told you to choose a side?”

Bo remembered. It hadn’t been that long ago that she’d stood in that gray, crowded glass factory, with jeers and cheers ringing in her ears and her temples scorched and the blood of her first challenge dripping still from her fingers. _‘Neither!’_ she’d cried out, tearing a howl of outrage from the Fae that surrounded her, and shocked, displeased expressions from the Ash and the Morrigan.

“You chose your side!” Aife called to her, her voice softer now, but still shrill with panic.

_‘I choose humans!’_ Bo had cried out again, when the cry of indignation had calmed a little. Yes, she remembered. She remembered Kenzi standing behind her, remembered the anger and resentment she’d felt towards her kin, remembered that Kenzi, a human she’d barely known, had saved her life. She chose humans. But she also chose to fight for the underdog, to fight for what was right.

“Don’t forget that, Bo,” Aife’s voice floated up to her now, and though Aife’s hand was slipping from her grasp, and the squeal of straining leather was shivering against her skin and she thought the vertigo of seeing her mother suspended over twelve stories of empty air might make her vomit, the strain of carrying Aife’s weight didn’t register anymore. “Don’t forget your loyalties, don’t forget your promises, don’t forget your true, generous heart and your just spirit,” Aife’s voice was a whisper in her ear. The roar of blood in Bo’s ears faded, shied away from it. “You’re the ‘Unaligned Succubus’, Bo,” Aife’s words pulsed like a heartbeat in Bo’s mind, “Don’t betray that by aligning yourself with the Light in all but name.”

Bo sucked in a deep breath. She was trembling, but not from having to hold her mother clear of the fall that would kill her.

“Bo!” Aife was screaming her name again, and Bo realized she’d squeezed her eyes shut against the memories that flooded her, against the strain it took to keep herself over the edge and to keep her fingers clamped tightly over her mother’s wrist. Her fingers felt numb, her wrist felt like taffy being stretched and thinned. When she looked at Aife, she looked frightened, but also resigned, like she knew her fate, knew her daughter could not hold on to her forever. “I love you!” Her mother’s words throbbed in Bo’s ears, “Do you believe that?!”

Bo tried to suck down the sob that clear admission brought to her throat, and failed. It escaped her in a mangled wet gasp of air, and her eyes burned with tears.

“Yes,” she rasped, her throat constricted and her lips stretched and tight with fear and pain, “You’re my mother,” she cried a little louder, “Yes!”

The harsh, sharp lines of Aife’s face, thrown into stark relief by the bright light of the chandelier that dangled over them, softened a little.

“Can you believe,” Aife paused, her fingers around Bo’s wrist were white with strain, her dangling arms and legs flailed for something solid to stand on or hold on to, “can you believe that people change?”

Bo didn’t answer, only held on to her mother as tightly as she could. Her arm ached, her whole body throbbed and shook with strain, and the blood in her ears screamed for relief. Aife stopped struggling below her, and she swayed with the little momentum that was left from the initial break in her fall. She looked up at Bo with wide brown eyes, her mouth stretched into a mangled line and her face as pale as death.

Bo stared down at her mother, stared down into deep pools of brown that matched hers, and saw in them the things she’d done. She saw the people she’d killed, the people she’d saved. She saw a warrior who struggled for justice, with a history both infinitely long and hesitantly, frighteningly short. She saw a woman whose allegiances weren’t tied up in the side she chose, but in the intentions and acts of the people she encountered.

Footsteps echoed behind her, rapid and sharp against the hard marble floor. A small, delicate body slid into place beside hers and threw her arms around Bo’s shoulders. She heard a voice in her ears, a voice she loved, screaming for her, begging her to let go, to stay. But everything that happened was an echo of something else, an echo of something deeper and more real than this. Her mother’s mouth moved again, but no words fell from Aife’s lips. Aife made a final, valiant effort to rise against gravity, she grasped Bo’s wrist with her other hand… and yanked herself away.

Bo’s lungs shriveled with the cry she remembered screaming into thin air. Aife shrunk away with the ground in a slow free-fall, and Bo was wrapped in thin arms and pulled away from the edge.


	25. Chapter 25

**The darkness pressed close around her, still whining, still creeping through every crack and crevice, searching and hungry. Bo shivered against the cold, and though she could feel a slow warmth begin to gather deep in her belly, her fingers were still frozen, and even her bones felt like they would never thaw out. She could feel the struggle within her begin to gather, she had a battle yet to fight, and knew she had a direction for it, and in the cold, lonely, empty darkness, that made all the difference.**

**Her eyes felt like they were glued shut, and her limbs still felt heavy and burdened. And though strength began to build in her thin, shivering frame, she wasn’t strong enough yet to throw off the icy darkness that still curled around her and tried to take her away. But she knew she had something to fight for, was beginning to understand where she’d gone wrong, and was beginning to see where she might begin to make it right. She remembered her first encounter with the Fae, with the self-serving, cruel, prideful creatures who cared about nothing but themselves, and treated each other and the humans they fed on with short-sighted negligence, unnecessary cruelty, and haughty dismissal. She’d experienced far more kindness, forgiveness and generosity from any one human she’d ever encountered than she’d ever experienced from all the Fae together – with the exception of Trick, Dyson, and Hale, and perhaps even Tamsin.**

**Now, she remembered. She knew where her loyalties lay, and where her heart would lead her. She was the unaligned Succubus, and she remembered why she chose to remain unaligned three years ago, and chose to remain unaligned again, baptized herself in the cold, shriveling darkness that surrounded her now and still, relentlessly, tried to consume her.**

**There would be casualties. She wept for them now, in the blackness that blanketed her. She wept for the hearts she’d broken, for the lives she’d stolen, for the hearts and lives she knew she’d continue to take for the life she intended to lead. But they wouldn’t be for nothing, and she would honor them forever, would remember them forever. This time, she wouldn’t forget. But could she ever hope to be forgiven? No… the dank, shriveling cold whispered against her frozen skin. It seeped its answer to her in thin, wailing rivulets into her ears and sang its harsh, shrill refusal into her defiantly beating heart. There was not enough forgiveness in the cruel, wide world to clean the stains of blood from Bo’s hands. She was alone, always, forever. No one could ever love a murderer, a thief of souls, a breaker of hearts. She was alone, not even Kenzi could reach her here, would want to fall into the frozen depths of hell to find her. No one would care to forgive a soul that found it so hard to forgive others.**

**The cold cried out to her, begged her to calm and forget, despite her resolution never to do so. It pushed upon her the memories and dreams it had imposed upon her when she first stepped into her Dawning and searched relentlessly for any crack, any break in the warm armor that enveloped her now from the inside out. It reminded her that she was alone here, that no one would know, no one would care, if she let go. But there was a warmth that permeated the darkness, and the sweet scent of cherries, a smell from her oldest memories and the sweetest parts of her childhood, that crawled through the darkness and crept in tendrils around her…**

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The scent of cherries flooded Bo’s nostrils. The room was awash in light, it streamed through the windows past the old white lace curtains and pooled on the scuffed hardwood floor, onto the old, worn dining table with the faded grain, and dripped from the bookshelves that lined the walls. Family pictures in old, sun-faded wooden frames glittered on every shelf, and a glass bowl of cherries sat invitingly on the table beside her. In front of her was a second bowl, and a third.

Behind her, in the kitchen, Bo could hear the faint sounds of her mother humming an old song, bumping and moving around while she prepared the dough for the pie. It was a sleepy, drowsy afternoon, and Bo felt warm, and comfortable, and happy.

A slow smile wormed its complacent way onto her lips, and she breathed in the tarty sweetness of the cherries beside her. Lazily, she picked a cherry from the bowl and began to pit it. The juice stained her fingers a dark burgundy and splattered her top in little droplets. But she was wearing an apron, so her clothes would stay clean. She pit cherry after cherry, humming along with the tune her mother sang in the kitchen behind her, and licked her fingers clean of the sweet, rich cherry juice every once in a while.

“Bo,” a warm, deep voice called. When Bo looked up, her father stood in the doorway. He shed his shoes there, leaning against the doorframe and smiling cheerfully at her. His eyes wrinkled at the corners and the dusting of gray at his temples had spread across his close cropped hair.

“Daddy,” Bo smiled back. The cherry juice had sunk deep into the prints of her fingers, she swiped her hands across her apron, and her father fell into the chair opposite hers. “You’re home.”

“Of course I am, Pumpkin. Your Momma’s in the kitchen?” His voice was a low, familiar purr, and his brown eyes smiled kindly at Bo. She nodded in reply, her heart swelled a little at seeing her father. She’d missed him so much. “Can I help?” He asked, and pointed at the forgotten bowl of whole cherries beside her.

Bo hummed her acquiescence and pushed the bowl to the center of the table. Her father immediately reached for one and distractedly began pitting it.

“I missed you, Daddy,” Bo mumbled. And then, embarrassed, she busied herself in picking out another cherry to pit – the fattest, darkest one she could find. She slid the bed of her nail into the chosen fruit, slicing the skin open, and deftly scooped the pit out in a practiced, fluid movement.

Her father stopped for a beat. Bo could feel his eyes on hers, feel the weight of his judgment in his stare.

“I missed you too, Pumpkin,” he said after a moment. His wrists rested on the edge of the table, his fingers curled relaxed, and dark red juice dripped from them to the worn surface of the table beneath. In the shadows, the cherry juice took on a purple hue, but awash in the light that shafted in sheets through the window, it looked almost like blood. “You’ve been gone a long time,” he went on, before reaching into the bowl for another cherry to pit, “did you come back for the Cherry Festival?”

Startled, Bo gave a slight jerk and looked up at her father. He avoided her eyes, and stared resolutely instead at the cherry he was trying to pit. The Cherry Festival was tomorrow, Bo knew that, but hadn’t really given it so much thought.

“I came back to see you, and Mom,” she answered hastily, bluntly. The cherry juice on her fingers felt warm, and the last one she’d pitted had left juice dripping from her fingers in fat, shivering droplets to the table beneath. A long moment passed before her father finally looked back at her coolly.

“Yes, you did,” he agreed. And then his expression softened and warmed. “Did you visit Kyle?”

A wave of guilt and remorse washed through Bo. She hadn’t been to see him yet, and she wasn’t sure she would. She had never been to his grave, and wasn’t sure she could handle seeing him in a single block of granite stone, with his name and the dates of his birth and death, the death she’d delivered to him, engraved solemnly upon it. Bo shook her head slowly, and picked another cherry from the bowl. It was as fat and juicy and dark as the last. Carefully, she carved through it and expertly pulled its heart out. It wasn’t the traditional way of pitting cherries, but in this time and place, it seemed entirely appropriate.

“Maybe you should,” her father said carefully, evenly, as if measuring out the exact amount of explosive powder needed for a single, devastating bomb. “He was the reason you left, after all.”

Bo didn’t answer. She wiped her dripping fingers on the edge of her apron, no longer craving the sweet, dark juice. And then she sat for a moment, with her head bowed, as if in prayer.

When her father spoke again, his voice took on a softness that Bo hadn’t heard from him in years.

“Do you remember,” he didn’t look up from his work, only plucked another cherry to pit; the bowl of cherries was slowly emptying, “that Sunday in church when that dying butterfly came through the window and it landed on your hand and you tried to help it fly and it just couldn’t?”

Bo looked up and found her father’s dark brown eyes on hers, soft and crinkling around the edges with the sweetness of that memory. She remembered.

“You cried, all day,” he said quietly. He dropped his pit into one bowl, and the cherry’s meat into the other. “Your mother and I tell each other that story all the time,” he paused, took a breath, “you always made everything better.”

Bo could hardly believe he remembered that story. She had been so little, everything back then had been so different, so simple.

“Dad, I know you thought that the way you chose to raise me was right,” Bo leaned into the table, her words as quiet and delicate as her father’s, and soft, so that her mother wouldn’t overhear, “I see that now. And when you and Mom screamed and yelled at me like I was evil, it’s because you didn’t really understand who I was.” Bo’s father watched her closely while she spoke, listening intently, staring at the little girl that had grown into a woman before his unseeing eyes. “Neither did I,” Bo went on, “We were all scared. Yeah, I made mistakes. I still do, a lot of them.” Bo stopped again to catch her breath, to catch the slight, uneasy flutter in her chest. It might not be the first time she’d ever said those things, but saying them again, apologizing again, was still scary. “I’m sorry. I am good, you know?”

Bo’s father kept staring at her from across the table, and his expression was so impassive that Bo was afraid he hadn’t heard her at all, or hadn’t cared. Then his face softened again, and the sunlight that poured through the windows lit across his face when he leaned in closer to her, and it looked warm and even loving.

“I know. We all know. People are always just falling in love with you, aren’t they?” He said this with no malice, no sarcasm, just kindness and a little innocence. Bo smiled a little at her father. “It was inevitable that Dyson would love you again, wasn’t it?”

Bo looked away, then, glanced down at the table, at the faded, worn swirls of grain and the stains the cherry juice had left on it. The wood was a little darker where the placemats usually sat, when her mother wasn’t busily making pies or shelling beans or doing her taxes.

“Could I have really known?” She asked so softly, as though asking herself rather than sharing her thoughts rhetorically with her father. She heard him draw in a loud breath through his nose, he shifted in his chair, and Bo looked up at him for guidance and comfort. “Could I have seen it the way I see everyone else’s desires? I could have spared him so much pain.” It was something that weighed heavily on her heart, something that gnawed at her ever since she’d discovered he’d taken his love back from the Norn.

Her father only looked at her for a minute, contemplated the answer, chewed on it while he chewed his bottom lip and rubbed his thumb to his fingers lightly.

“How could you have spared him pain?” He asked her after a while, his rough voice soft with sympathy and consideration, “would you have left Lauren, to be with him?”

No. Bo knew the answer to that better than she knew almost anything else.

“I love Lauren,” she repeated out loud, “only Lauren.”

“Then there is nothing you could have done to spare him pain,” her father said matter-of-factly. He looked at her squarely, saw the worry and the sadness in her eyes when she looked back at him. “Are you truly willing to be monogamous for this human?” He was genuinely curious, his head cocked at a slight angle and wonder glimmered in his dark eyes, “You, the Succubus, and You, Bo.”

Bo pursed her lips a little, her name sounded so strange coming from his mouth, but it was the only one that fit. “Yes,” she answered simply. Bo would move the earth for Lauren. Her Succubus nature demanded a sex life too ravenous for one human to sate, but her human nature, the one she had grown up with, demanded a commitment to the woman she loved. She knew it would be a hard road, knew there would be pitfalls, knew that her path, because she was human and because she was Fae, would be unique, and wild, full of danger. She would be navigating blind. But she would trail-blaze. For Lauren, but also for herself. It was who she was, to take the road untraveled. To be monogamous for Lauren was what she wanted – all she wanted – for them. And what she wanted mattered more in this than what she could do. She would shape the world around her to make it possible, if she had to.

Satisfied, perhaps in seeing the determination in his daughter’s face, her father leaned back in his chair again and began to suck the stained cherry juice from his fingertips. “Then what about Dyson?” He asked, almost as an afterthought.

Bo considered the layers of his question for a long moment. She had loved Dyson too, once. She still did. She always would. He meant so much to her, was such a vital aspect of who she was and who she’d become, and had been there for her through so much. But she never fought for his love, not the way she wanted to for Lauren’s. She never could. And the easy, faithful friendship she had with Dyson now she loved far more than the turbulent, passionate relationship she’d had with him in the past.

“You know, after everything we’ve been through,” she said slowly, softly, “I’m really glad we ended up where we are now.” She looked at her father, and though she’d expected to feel uncertain about what she’d said, about how she felt, she wasn’t. He smiled at her, and licked the last of the cherry juice from his thumb. The bowl of whole cherries beside him was empty. His last words echoed in the blackness that flooded the room in a crack of lightning and spirited her away again, one last time.

“And what about you?”


	26. Chapter 26

**The darkness shivered around Bo unhappily. It shrank from her skin, hesitant, distrustful, almost afraid. Bo could feel the warmth that flooded the empty spaces inside her, and thought it might be seeping through her skin, through her pores, and pushing at the cold emptiness that surrounded her like a shield. Life stirred within her, and Bo wasn’t as frightened, as hurt, as sad, as she had been since the dark nothing had started showing her all the bleak memories it fabricated for her.**

**Forgiveness was not impossible. If Bo could forgive herself for the atrocities she’d committed, if her mother could love her for who she was now, could recognize the good life she’d forged for herself, then all was not yet lost.**

**The cold swirled around her, angry and frightened. It swooped and curled, dove and shattered against the warmth that Bo gathered around her like a blanket. It screamed incriminations at her, and in the shrill, wordless cries it rent against her skin, it tried to tear away what peace the clemency she’d found had instilled within her. But Bo had forgiven herself for the person she’d once been, and knew she would never allow herself to be that person again. It was hard to believe that Bo was still afforded a second chance, an opportunity to go back and fix her mistakes, to repair the damage she’d done to the people she loved, that loved her. The darkness tried to convince her otherwise, but truth was beginning to shine and glimmer like a beacon. It pierced the darkness in slender shafts that tingled against Bo’s skin and called for her to wake up.**

**She was all alone, abandoned and forgotten in this oubliette, and had no one to rely on but herself. But she had to be enough, had to fight back, had to recollect around her the people she knew had to be waiting for her on the other side, had to win back their trust, their faith, their love. Alone and scattered, they were weak. But together, they could surmount any obstacle set in their path. She’d found the forgiveness she’d ached for within herself, and in the mother who’d raised her. Now, she needed to find the forgiveness of the friends she’d left behind. She’d abandoned Kenzi, broken Lauren’s heart, betrayed her own sense of justice and attacked the single person willing to call her on it. But the time to lament was over, and the time to act had come. And she wouldn’t let the darkness have her, not now. Even if she had to fight it alone. Even if her friends, her family, couldn’t stand beside her. She had finally found her strength to fight back, remembered where her loyalties lay, and allowed herself the peace to put her torrid past to rest.**

**And dimly, though she knew that she was all alone in the frozen wasteland that enveloped her, Bo began to discern a slender, graceful shape begin to collect from within the dark clouds that battered her. Tendrils of light gathered, and Bo could almost see that although they seemed to come from the darkness, they merely traveled through it, and slowly, painstakingly, began to take shape and mass. The fine, delicate lines of an arm appeared, glowing through the angry, spitting black. A long, slender neck shimmered through, the pale skin flickered against the cold darkness that struggled to suppress it, to tear it apart before it fully formed. The body that built in the wretched darkness exuded a warm light from within it, a stark contrast to the bleak emptiness that had defined Bo from the moment she’d stepped into her Dawning. And then Bo gave a gasp and her eyes flew open. She recognized the woman that stared grimly, accusingly back at her.**

 

* * *

 

 

“Aife,” Bo whispered in a harsh croak. It was her mother, the mother that had left her, that abandoned her, that stood in front of her now. Her dark eyes were lit with anger, and her fists were clenched on either side of her. A vein throbbed in the middle of her forehead. Still, she looked beautiful, and Bo studied her features, and found within them a resemblance that transcended the physical.

“Bo,” Aife rasped back, her own voice as harsh a croak as Bo’s. She didn’t step closer, only considered her daughter from afar. The darkness pressed around them, and Bo dimly wondered why they met here, in the dark recesses of Bo’s Dawning, and not somewhere more friendly, like the images and scenes her subconscious had set up for her in the past.

“Aife, what are you doing here?” Bo took a step forward, her arms reached out to the woman in front of her, but like the endless floor at Aife’s sprawling home, she only seemed to shrink away from her.

“Oh nice, you’re the one who brought me here, but now you want me gone, is that it?” Aife’s mouth twisted with rage. Black smoke seemed to curl and writhe around her, the darkness that struggled against the bubble of warmth around Bo had no trouble winding around Aife. Even through the darkness, she looked livid. “What, am I not good enough for you? Take me when you want me and cast me away when you’re done?”

“Mom, no!” Bo struggled, took another step, but Aife shrank away further into the darkness. And then the anger that lit Aife’s face fell and her expression turned suddenly fearful. The furious light in her eyes dimmed, and turned mad. “Mom, it’s okay!” Bo could feel a sob begin to knot in her throat, she hardly knew what she was saying, hardly understood the circumstances that had brought them here.

“No, it’s not okay,” Aife gasped, her voice choked with terror, “it’s not okay, you have to leave!”

“How do I leave?!” Bo cried back at her. She ached to run forward, to calm the storm that raged around her mother. The last time she’d seen Aife, she’d been somehow better, had left her with calm resignation and sacrificed herself for her. Bo wanted to run to her mother, to gather Aife in her arms and be better too. And she wanted, desperately, to leave.

“Leave?!” Aife’s face twisted again, from terror back to fury, “you want to leave me?! You left me before, you’ll leave me again, like Trick did, like Isabeau did!” Thunder rolled and cracked around them, and through it all, Bo could feel the pulse of ice try to break apart the blanket of warmth she’d pulled around herself and cut through to her very heart. “You left them all, you’ll leave me too,” Aife’s words fell to a harsh, guttural growl, and her chin lowered aggressively. She raised her finger in accusation and pointed it straight at Bo.

A cold swell of anger rose within Bo. “You know what, that’s great!” Bo exploded in outrage, her arms flew out and fell back to her sides, curled into fists, and her lips snarled with the anger she felt flooding inside her like a tidal wave, “You left me first, you know!” she shouted, “I looked for you, I wanted to know you! You left me alone, to be raised by somebody else, to find out who I was by myself. And then, what?” Bo swallowed the hurt that balled in her throat, “You come back as Saskia, bang Dyson, and then try to destroy the Fae.”

The fury in Aife’s face melted away, and a saccharine smile stretched across her lips in its place. Unease twisted in Bo’s gut.

“The point isn’t that I was gone, Sugar-pie, it’s that I’m back,” Aife replied too sweetly. Bo swallowed her confusion, it swirled instead in her thoughts and stabbed sharp pain in her temples. “I may not be Fae-of-the-freakin’-year, but I’m still your mother,” Aife said in a voice that sounded far too much like Bo’s own, “I thought you wanted to tear down the establishment?”

Bo squeezed her eyes shut, this was all getting too much for her. The palms of her hands, still clenched tightly into fists, ground into her eyes and she drew away. Memories swirled in her head, snippets and scents, sounds, voices, images that came from a source other than the darkness that had dominated and controlled her every thought for a time Bo didn’t know how long. When Bo opened her eyes again and wrapped her arms around herself, she found Aife standing a little closer to her, though she looked like she hadn’t moved a muscle. Aife stared back mutely, her eyes searching in the darkness, as though she could see Bo, but only through a dark silk screen. As if all she saw were shadows fading in and out with the light.

Bo grit her teeth and pressed her lips together, her brows knit and she steeled herself for the mind-games her own consciousness seemed determined to play with her.

“Why did you dump me, all those years ago?” she asked Aife, her voice so soft it needed the black, ethereal wind to carry it to Aife’s ears. If this were Bo’s own subconscious, Bo shouldn’t need to shout to be heard. “Didn’t you want me?”

“Maybe I did it to protect you,” Aife answered in a voice equally soft. She seemed to be looking right through Bo, and Bo shifted on her feet uncomfortably. A voice squirmed on the edge of her memory, a black cloud of smoke rushed across Aife, hiding her temporarily from view, and when it scudded away to join the endless darkness around them, it left little pools of black lingering along every line of Aife’s face.

“Leaving your kid to grow up thinking they’re a serial killer, without knowing how, or why,” Bo flinched against the barrage of memories her own words battered her with, but she forced herself to finish, “that’s a hell of a way to protect them.”

“Have you thought that maybe what we were shielding you from might have been much worse?”

Pain blindsided Bo, a sharp blow to the back of her skull that throbbed behind her eyes and tore a memory forcibly from her own head. Aife flickered in the darkness, her voice sounded so familiar, but so entirely unlike hers, and Bo thought she saw the outline of a man standing there, short and balding, with a salt and pepper beard and wisdom crinkling the corners of dark brown eyes that Bo recognized with fondness and respect. She drew in a sharp breath and blinked away the last traces of the sharp agony that had assaulted her, and when she focused her eyes again, Aife was still standing in front of her, staring with such focused determination at her. Trick was gone.

“You knew I was alive,” Aife’s tone was quiet, but intense. Wisps of darkness fluttered around her, played in long, silky tresses of brown hair and kissed pale skin and blended with the black dress Aife wore. “Why didn’t you look for me?”

Bo remembered seeing her mother fall from the top story of her home, seeing her broken body lying on the marble floor, with her hair tossed in a halo around her head and blood seeping from beneath her. But when she’d finally reached the landing, all that was left was that puddle of blood, and Bo remembered knowing, somehow, that her mother was still alive, and had only vanished. Bo shut her eyes again and struggled to shake off this quietly accusing mirage, but her mother only stood in front of her, waiting for an answer.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” she stuttered, reaching for any reason that might sound even vaguely understandable, “I don’t know… I wish I had,” she finished lamely.

“I waited for you, alone in that cave. But you didn’t come for me,” Aife’s voice sounded somehow small now, and the lines of Aife’s face flickered, rearranged in the darkness that hugged its every feature, into the face of a girl she loved fiercely. “You didn’t come for me, but I came for you, over and over.” Kenzi. Bo sucked in a gulp of cold air and stepped forward again, her arms reaching out to envelop the slender, ballerina frame of the girl who always came back for her, who always stood beside her. Kenzi’s name fell from Bo’s lips in a silent plea for forgiveness. “I came back for you at the glass factory, I came back for you at O’Meara’s mansion, I always come back for you, Bo,” Kenzi’s words trembled in the thin, frozen darkness.

“I’ll always come back for you too, Kenz. Always,” Bo answered in a harsh, ragged whisper. But Kenzi seemed to shrink back with every step forward Bo took, and then blackness stole across her face again, and Kenzi was no longer Kenzi, but Lauren, staring back at her dolefully, fearfully, through big honey eyes that seemed to glow in the darkness with a light of their own.

“Will you? Really?” the insecurity in Lauren’s voice tore at Bo’s heart, and Bo lurched forward in a desperate attempt to wrap Lauren in her arms and hold her there and never let her go. But like Kenzi, and Aife before her, Lauren seemed to fall away again, just out of arm’s reach. “The first time we made love,” Lauren’s words trembled between them, tremulous and almost unreal, “I did it to keep you safe, and you forgave me for it, eventually.”

Bo stopped, hardly remembering to breathe, and stared at Lauren through eyes that swam with tears.

“I lied to you. Kept the truth from you. Again. Will you forgive me this time?” Lauren’s words were a breath, suspended in the heavy black air that surrounded them. “Will you come back for me again?”

Like a punch to the gut, the air in Bo’s lungs escaped her, and left her breathless and gasping. She stumbled forward again, her arms flailing for Lauren, who flickered away in the blackness that swirled around them both and pressed against Bo’s skin intimately. In Lauren’s place, only a hair’s breadth from Bo’s outstretched fingers, was her mother again.

“I’ll always be here. I’ll always come back for you, Bo. You’re my daughter,” the madness was gone from Aife’s eyes now, erased from her voice like it had never been there. The line of her mouth was stretched back and the corners of her eyebrows raised in an expression of wishful desperation that cut deep into Bo’s heart. Bo saw again how much she looked like her mother, and how much that resemblance went beyond the physical. It was like looking into a mirror. “I’ll always come back for you, Bo,” her mother repeated, her voice thin and soft, but echoing in every fiber of Bo’s being, “will you always come back for me?”

“Yes,” Bo gasped, her lips trembled with hope and heartfelt agony, “always.”

That final promise broke whatever barrier lay between them, and Bo tumbled into the outstretched arms of her mother. She shuddered and gasped into Aife’s neck, held on tightly, to Aife, to Lauren, to Kenzi, and the arms around her tightened fiercely as though they would never let go.

“Okay,” Bo sighed at the sound of her own voice whispering in her ear, “okay.” She didn’t need to step back to understand that the woman she was holding in her arms was herself, was the part of her that she’d forgotten and neglected and abandoned for so long, that had been abandoned by so many people. She didn’t need to look at her face, into her eyes, to know that it was Aife, Kenzi and Lauren all at once, all abandoned and betrayed by the people they loved the most. In the darkness, they were lost, in each other’s arms, together, they were found. And the darkness around them was so cold, it burned, until all of it was gone.

 


	27. Chapter 27

“Oh my God, it’s happening,” Lauren breathed softly. She drew in a sharp breath and sat up over her book at the bar. Dyson and Kenzi stared back at her, their faces draining of blood and their mouths slightly agape. An eerie blue glow had cast across Kenzi’s book, and Dyson drew in a deep breath of air, tasting the shift in it even as he stared across the bar at the shivering bowl of water on the floor.

“What’s happening?” Tamsin asked off-handedly, without looking up from over Maia’s shoulder at the lit computer screen.

“Bo!” Kenzi gasped, and scrambled up from her hunched position over a table to dash across the floor. Trick darted in front of her, shotgun in one hand and the other outstretched to hold her back. Light spun dizzyingly over the bowl of water where Bo had disappeared into her Dawning hours ago. It left little ripples spreading in trembling concentric circles in the clear, cold liquid. The petals of the flowers in the bowl beside it shivered, as though wind breathed across them gently, though all the windows and the door were shut and fastened tightly.

“Wait,” Trick murmured, his expression grim and focused, “we don’t know who… or what… will come out.” He cocked the shotgun, it clicked and snapped into place. Dyson and Lauren both scrambled up together to stand beside Kenzi and stared in terrified fascination at the blue light that spun and dipped in a dazzling show of color and speed. Tamsin, Stella and Maia stayed crouched over their books and laptop, though their attention was wholly riveted to the spectacle at the other end of the pub.

Slowly, as if being regurgitated by her Dawning, the top of a dark-haired head crowned through thin air. It was glossy and black, and a thick, cloudy liquid, slightly pink with the hint of blood, dripped and oozed and splattered on the floor. The stench of warm, damp flesh and blood permeated the air, and with a strange, sucking squelch, the pale pink of a forehead appeared, the dark, shallow pits of shadowed eyes, a long slender nose and generous mouth. She slid out and down to her chin as if between contractions, slowly, haltingly, until her head hung from a neck that hovered from the pale blue light in clear view. For a moment, the movement stopped, and Lauren darted forward to hold her up, but Trick grabbed her wrist and held on tightly, and they all stared with bated breath, expressions alternately grim and amazed. The squelching, sucking noise suddenly intensified, the shimmering circle of light stiffened, and then with a jerk, her shoulders squeezed and squirmed and twisted out. Cloudy goop burst through the otherworldly rent in the air with it, and as her upper body slid out, the murky ooze splattered across the floor. Bo slid out the rest of the way more easily, more fluidly. Her head touched the floor, and turned into a position that wouldn’t snap her neck when she finally landed. Her arms were wound around her waist, and her hips seemed to catch for an instant in the blue tear in the air, but with a last, wet, whooshing gasp, the rest of her squelched out and dropped Bo in a wet, heaving mass on the floor.

Shrill screams rent the air. They all clapped their hands to their ears, with the exception of Trick, who grimaced in discomfort and pain at the sound that assaulted his eardrums, and Stella, who stared almost disinterestedly at the source of the noise. The stench of warm, damp flesh and blood strengthened, and the screams intensified until the whole of the Dal shook with them.

She curled into a fetal position. Her eyes were clenched tightly shut, her arms moved to wrap around her head and her hair, long and almost black with the embryonic ooze that clung to her, tangled in her fingers and stuck against the sides of her face, her neck and her shoulders. The screaming stopped for a moment, and Bo drew in another deep breath, and her jaw dropped with another bloodcurdling cry that stole the breath from the room. She lay on her side, clenched tightly into herself, and sobbed, naked, on the floor of the Dal.

“Bo,” Lauren choked out. Everyone was paralyzed, staring at the bloody, dripping mess on the floor of the pub. But Lauren yanked her wrist from Trick’s tight grip and darted forward and fell to her knees beside Bo’s shuddering body. Thick, slimy fluid tinted with blood gathered in a thin, shallow pool around her, it stained her skin, seeped from her hair, but there was not a single wound or bruise that Lauren could see. With trembling hands, she hovered over Bo, anxious, frightened, and relieved all at once. The screams died down to heartbroken, breathless sobs. Lauren drew her arms around Bo, inspected her carefully in the dim, flickering light of the pub, and found no blemish, no scar, no cut or abrasion anywhere. Her fingers searched for a pulse-point, and checked it with gentle, trembling pressure. “Bo,” Lauren whispered against her lover’s skin, her face white and pale, and eyes bright with the fresh tears of relief she refused to shed.

Bo was alive. Her eyes were still clamped tightly shut, and she was clenched fiercely into a little ball, but she breathed in heavy, bewildered sobs and trembled with cold, and her heartbeat was strong and steady.

“Towels…” Lauren murmured, shell-shocked, at the woman in her arms who stained her shirt and skin a pale pink. She spun on her heels, crouched on the floor beside Bo, and fixed Trick with a hard, intense stare, “I need towels! Now!”

Trick blinked, stared back at Lauren, stunned, for all of a second, before scurrying down to his home. Kenzi darted forward beside Lauren and Bo, her face ashen and her lips drawn in a tight, tense line.

“What’s happening?” she asked, her voice so quiet and so strained, Bo’s shuddering sobs almost drowned them out completely. But Lauren heard her and looked back with an expression of such wonder and worry that Kenzi swallowed back her question and nodded silently, and wrapped her arms around Bo too. The three of them rocked together on the floor, Lauren and Kenzi moving in tandem in a fragile attempt to soothe the sobbing, oblivious Succubus in their arms. Bo shook with cold, and her teeth chattered quietly with it, but her skin, and the sticky placenta that drenched her, felt almost hot. She smelled of heat and humidity, with the subtle coppery undertone of blood.

Stella’s heeled shoes tapped against the floor, she took small, quick strides toward the three women crouched against the Dal’s low stage and dropped into a prim crouch merely a foot away.

“She succeeded,” Stella said softly. Trick’s feet pounded on the stairs, and he reached them in a flurry of enormous fluffy towels that didn’t fit completely in his outstretched arms. Kenzi and Lauren pulled at the towels and wrapped them tightly around Bo’s frame, rubbing gently and carefully to dry Bo’s slick skin of the fluid she’d emerged in. They handled her with the delicacy of a pair of midwives drying off a newborn child, dried the skin between her fingers and brushed away the slime that clung to her hair, until her skin glowed porcelain again and her hair bounced in glossy, half-dried waves around her face and neck. When they were done, they draped the last dry towel around her shoulders and tucked her into it. Trick watched with worried, anxious dark eyes, and Dyson, Maia and Tamsin crept in slowly until they formed a tight circle around her.

Bo stopped crying. Her breath came with the occasional tired little hiccup, but she didn’t open her eyes. Lauren leaned in again to hear her breathe, to hear it come in the deep, measured strokes of the deeply asleep, and sighed in relief.

“She’s asleep,” she whispered. Her heart beat erratically in her chest, it felt so good to be so close to Bo, but it hurt so much too. She closed her eyes and brushed her forehead to Bo’s temple.

“And no horns!” Kenzi chuckled nervously. A tense laugh rippled through the circle of closely watching bystanders. Bo was back, she was alive, and she succeeded.

Trick sighed in relief. He fell to his knees beside Bo and leaned in close to brush her hair delicately with his fingers, tears stood in his eyes, and his mouth was drawn in a tight smile. “Congratulations, Isabeau,” he murmured softly to her, his voice trembled slightly with the force of his gratitude, “my darling granddaughter. You made it through.” Bo only sighed and hiccupped again, and turned her face into the crook of Lauren’s neck. Lauren gave a shuddering sigh, relieved to have Bo back alive, grateful that Bo had been strong enough to survive a trial she couldn’t have been ready for, and brushed a kiss to Bo’s damp hair before carefully extricating herself from the tangle of Bo’s and Kenzi’s arms. It hurt too much to be so close to Bo, to feel her respond so affectionately to her subtle presence. She swiped the tears from her eyes and stepped away, and didn’t meet any of the sets of eyes that lingered on hers.

“How long is she going to be like this?” Kenzi murmured quietly, careful not to disturb the sleeping woman in her arms.

“As long as she needs,” Stella answered. Their eyes met briefly before Kenzi busied herself with re-tucking the towel around Bo’s shoulders, and disquiet flickered across Stella’s features for an instant before they settled again on indifference. “Depends on how grueling her Dawning was for her. She needs to rest.”

“I’ll carry her to the couch,” Dyson offered, his voice hushed and rough, and he knelt beside Bo and gathered her up in his arms. Kenzi pulled away hesitantly, but smiled wanly at Dyson and allowed him to pick Bo up and carry her carefully away.

Maia sidled over to Lauren, her casted arm cuddled tightly to her chest and her small eyes as wide as saucers and still glued to the tightly curled, unconscious Succubus. “Hey,” she tore her gaze from Bo to look sidelong at Lauren, “are you OK?”

Lauren almost laughed. She wasn’t, by any means, OK, but it touched her that Maia cared to ask. Bo had joked a few weeks ago, what felt like a lifetime ago, that Maia seemed to have developed a bit of a crush on her, but Lauren had brushed it off. Maia was watching her worriedly, and the memory of that long ago conversation brought a bittersweet smile to Lauren’s lips.

A buzz in Lauren’s pocket saved her from choosing between a placatory lie or the painful truth, Lauren smiled apologetically at Maia and pulled it out of her pocket. Dyson had carefully lain Bo out on the couch and rearranged the towel over her like a blanket, Trick had disappeared back down to his home to get more clean, dry blankets for Bo, and Kenzi and Tamsin watched Maia and Lauren with a look of suspicion. Stella only resettled herself on a stool and stared at the sparse notes they’d gathered on Bo’s biological father.

“It’s Hale,” Lauren announced quietly, “he needs me. I have to go.”

“What?” Kenzi took a step forward, her soft voice urgent and anxious, “no way, what if Bo needs you?”

“She won’t,” Stella remarked sharply, earning a scathing look from Kenzi and a few raised eyebrows at her frank and insensitive tone, “she’ll wake up tired and a little dehydrated, but none the worse for wear.” Stella shrugged unapologetically and stared at Bo’s sleeping form. Bo’s chest rose and fell with the deep breaths she took, her face was hidden by a curtain of tangled, half-dried hair. “Actually, she’ll feel better than she ever has, stronger and… new, for lack of a better word.”

Six sets of eyes lingered on Bo, ranging from tender, to worried, to curious, to indifferent. Kenzi shifted from foot to foot unhappily and took another step toward Lauren. She knew her break up with Bo had been painful, she knew how much Lauren loved Bo, and how much it must hurt to be in the same room with her, but Kenzi’s anxiety over Bo’s wellbeing far outstripped her sympathy toward the human doctor, no matter how sympathetic she was, and how much she’d come to like and respect Lauren over the past few weeks. Lauren had proven her merit, and Kenzi was finally convinced that her feelings for Bo were deep and genuine. But Bo was the priority now, and as far as she was concerned, Hale should have been here too, so he could wait.

Lauren’s lip trembled so subtly with the sting of Stella’s words that Kenzi almost missed it. She opened her mouth to assure Lauren that what Stella said wasn’t true, that Bo did need her, that she’d want her, ask for her, when she woke, but Lauren gave an abashed, self-conscious, self-berating smile and shrugged.

“No, she doesn’t need me,” Lauren breathed before Kenzi could argue otherwise, and offered Kenzi a tired, sad smile, “But Hale does. It sounds urgent. It’s better if I’m not here when Bo wakes.”

“Better for who?!” Kenzi blurted accusingly, her face reddening with her sudden anger. Her fists clenched on either side of her, she glared at Lauren, feeling somehow betrayed in all of this.

“Kenzi, please,” Lauren begged, her voice soft and sounding faded and exhausted. Dyson reached forward, his face drawn and tight, and laid a gentle, pressuring hand on Kenzi’s shoulder. She shrugged him off promptly and glared at him. Lauren was already gathering her jacket and on her way out the door, her footsteps echoed a lonely beat against the warm, wooden floor-boards of the Dal.

“What about Bo’s father?” Maia’s question hung delicately, quietly in the air. She stared at Lauren, her expression a little lost and her voice tiny in the heavy stillness that hung over them all. Lauren paused with her hand on the doorknob, her coat draped over one arm and her golden hair shimmering in the light of the lamps on either side of the doorway. Tamsin pursed her lips and shifted tensely, a unit separate from the group, connected by the thin, silken thread Maia held tenuously over her, and held further still by the slender connection of Maia’s tentative, friendship-turned-acquaintance with Lauren and her slow friendship with Kenzi.

Lauren didn’t turn, only cocked her head slightly in Maia’s direction, and most of her face was hidden behind an opportune curtain of hair.

“If I come up with anything, I’ll call. But I have faith in you. And I have faith in her,” Lauren drew in a deep breath and released it slowly. She turned the knob in her hand and pushed the door open, a cool breeze whisked itself into the Dal immediately, it whispered through Lauren’s hair, as if calling for her softly, placatingly. “Tell Trick I said thank you,” her voice fell to a barely audible murmur, “for the drink.” The breeze swirled around her as she stepped through the doorway, and the door thudded behind her, sounding ominous and final. For a moment, the room drew its breath and held it, like a goodbye none of them had meant to give. And then the moment was shattered by the sound of Trick’s heavy footsteps on the stairs.

He carried a thick, warm woolen blanket in his arms. Kenzi recognized it as the one he’d draped over her when she’d been poisoned by basilisk blood. He whisked it over to Bo and silently, thoughtfully, blanketed her in it. When he was done, he stood, blinked and looked about the room as if only just waking up.

“Where’s –“

“Lauren…” Bo mumbled the end of Trick’s question in her sleep, her eyelashes fluttered and she stirred restlessly on the couch, and the lines of her face flickered briefly from peaceful to troubled and back again.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

_This time, Bo knew it was a memory. Its edges were fuzzy, worn, and it smelled somehow stale and dusty, like an old book buried beneath layers and layers of history. It was odd, having this strange, out of body experience, but it was important, and Bo focused as much as her tired, weary soul would allow. Like it was a shallow pool of water, Bo dipped deeper into the memory, and tasted the smell in the air as it turned from musty to a familiar, synthetic bubblegum. There were small, warm hands clasped in hers, the Oracles’ bones felt so fragile between her fingers. The room was drenched in a weak, yellow half-light, and it was cold. There were enormous industrial freezers ranged around the table at which they sat, and the cold came from them in waves. But Bo’s feet were warm in her boots, and she stared across the table in anticipation and amazement at the petite Chinese girl that held her hands and drew in her breath as if she were about to duck under water._

_She was finally about to find out about her mom._

_Cassie’s eyes fluttered. She drew in gasping breaths, and her hands clenched tightly, erratically, around Bo’s. Her eyeballs rolled in their sockets, and she shuddered with the strength of her vision, and Bo remembered feeling a little frightened of what was happening. Cassie hadn’t reacted so violently before, when Bo had been given a taste of what Cassie could do._

_“A girl…,” Cassie’s voice sounded so far away, “your mother. Betrayed by the one she loved the most.” Cassie’s eyes rolled again, and her lips trembled and she shuddered and drew in another gasping breath. Bo’s heart beat furiously, and she gripped Cassie’s convulsing fingers a little tighter, desperate and eager to hear more, terrified to know what Cassie might tell her. “But she escaped,” Cassie continued, “after all those years. Searching, yearning, for her child. For you.”_

_Cassie’s eyes flew open, and she stared at Bo without really seeing her. Bo held her breath, clung to Cassie’s hands and drew closer. The empty expression on Cassie’s face twisted into one of horror. “She will be coming,” Cassie cried, “there will be a battle. Death!” Cassie’s voice was shrill with fear, it writhed in the air between them. A slow trickle of blood slid from Cassie’s nose to her upper lip, gleaming and red. “You will have to choose,” Cassie’s voice quieted a little, but her eyes were wide and her whole body rigid, “she’s coming,” Cassie shrieked, “She’s coming! She’s coming, she’s coming!”_

_Cassie gave a final gasping shriek and tore away from Bo, “I’m gonna ralph!” Her hands were freezing when she snatched them from Bo’s tight grip, she clapped one to her mouth and spun out of her chair so fast she almost knocked it over. Bo stared after her, stunned, as Cassie heaved and hacked over the trash can, bent over double and her little body trembling with effort._

_“What was that, because that was not my memory!” Bo remembered calling after her, though it sounded faded, dusty somehow, lost in the depths of time past and gone. Cassie straightened in the corner, a tissue in her hands smearing away the blood from her face. She looked incredulous and annoyed, and tilted her head down to look condescendingly at Bo._

_“No duh,” she snapped, and swiped at her face with the tissue again. She was still panting, and when she looked back up at Bo from the tissue in her hands, her expression reflected the raw anxiety that raced in Bo’s veins. “Do not tell anyone that just happened,” she warned, her voice low and almost growling._

_Bo felt herself tense, she remembered the rush of anger and anxiety the whole encounter sent thrumming through every muscle, every nerve. “What does it mean?”_

_“You’re a major player,” Cassie stared at her, her voice frank, her face bare in honesty, tight with fear, “fate has some serious plans for you.”_


	28. Chapter 28

The darkness had faded around her. It had fled into the cracks and crevices, screaming shrill cries of agony and defeat, even as it shrank away. A cozy glow burned behind her eyelids. She was warm now, curled up and covered from chin to toes in heavy blankets. Her hair was stuck to her skin, it itched a little, and her throat felt dry and sticky. Her tongue felt dry and sticky too, too large for her mouth and too unwieldy to use.

She struggled to open her eyes, but they were glued shut. She groaned in frustration, but her voice sounded weak and cracked to her ears. There was a whispering in the background, voices arguing, voices that sounded wonderfully, beautifully familiar to her.

Carefully, Bo shifted. Her muscles ached, they felt tight and sore, like she’d run a thousand miles without stopping for breath. But it felt good. She scraped at her eyes with the backs of her knuckles, and they came away caked with sleep. She licked her lips with her fat, dry tongue, and managed to choke out a single word.

“Water…?”

Immediately, there was scraping from every side. It broke in her ears, a discordant, immediate reaction to her waking, and she winced against it. Her head throbbed. She felt like she had a hangover, though she was pretty sure she hadn’t spent the entirety of her Dawning drowning herself in alcohol.

“Bo!” Kenzi’s voice was sharp and loud in her ears, she flinched, but was so, eternally grateful to hear it all the same. Kenzi’s hands settled on her shoulders, helped her to sit up, and finally, Bo managed to tear her eyelids apart. Light speared her retinas, blinding and burning with intensity. “Bo, you’re awake!”

Bo couldn’t decide if she wanted to laugh or cry. Kenzi’s arms were around her, hugging her, holding her. She was home. And Kenzi was still here. She shuddered a convoluted compromise between the two and struggled to wrap her own arms around her best friend, her sister.

There were bodies ranged around her. Dyson smiled down at her from above, Trick’s big, calloused hand settled over her head and she knew without having to see that his shoulders were thrown back, and his chest was puffed out, and he was smiling that wonderful, proud, whole-bodied smile at her that she’d been craving to see for weeks. Even Tamsin was there, blocking out the most of the painfully bright light of the lamp that shone in Bo’s eyes, a black silhouette to Bo’s unadjusted vision against a field of old, yellowing white. Maia was crouched beside her, staring at her with blatant fascination. Stella towered over her in the background, watching with quiet relief, and a little pride.

“Water?” Bo managed to mumble again. She smacked her lips in an attempt to dampen them, it felt like there were a dozen cotton balls stuffed between her cheeks. Trick laughed, a trembling, joyful sound, and slipped away to find her a glass of the cold, clear liquid she craved.

With her mouth dampened and cooled by fresh water, and Kenzi curled into one side and her friends crouched and ranged around her in a circle, Bo finally gave herself the chance to look around again. There was a face missing, one she dearly ached to see. With her eyes scrunched up against the Dal’s painfully throbbing lights, Bo looked from one face to the next, still searching, double-checking, that the one she looked for wasn’t there. Everyone but Lauren stared back at her silently, their expressions ones of mixed relief, quiet joy, and solemnity.

“How are you feeling?” Trick asked her quietly. He stood close to her, with his hand over her arm and his thumb rubbing her skin gently, soothingly.

Bo blinked, gave her head a little shake, and wrapped her other arm tightly around Kenzi’s thin shoulders. Her mouth still felt clumsy, but she had to ask.

“Where’s Lauren?”

“She was here,” Dyson answered, his rough voice soft and a little hesitant. He was crouched at Kenzi’s feet, and his arm lay across her legs and gripped Bo’s ankle through the covers gently. “Hale called her in. She had to go. But she was here, Bo.”

Bo looked at him and nodded thoughtfully. A small, tired smile played on her lips. She ached to jump up and find her, to start repairing the damage between them, but her limbs felt heavy and she was still so thirsty. And she needed to be with Kenzi too.

“It is so good to see all of you,” Bo sighed tiredly, her voice still a little cracked and rough around the edges. She looked up at Tamsin, who’d pulled up a stool to sit close by, though she looked a little uncomfortable and out of place. “All of you,” Bo gave Tamsin a small, pointed smile. Tamsin blinked, her eyebrows furrowed, as if surprised by the sentiment, then smiled tentatively back. She seemed strangely shy, almost happy to be included, and it was so like and unlike Tamsin all at once. She shifted uneasily on her stool and didn’t respond.

“How are you feeling?” Trick asked again, his voice more insistent this time. He was watching Bo carefully, his dark eyes full of concern and his hand over her arm tightening ever so slightly. Bo sighed and finally looked up at him.

“I’m fine. Really,” she smiled wearily at him, “just tired. And naked…” Bo had noticed that beneath the layers of blankets piled over her that she had no clothes on. It wasn’t a pressing concern, but it was curious to her that she’d gone into the Dawning fully dressed and come out in her birthday suit.

Dyson chuckled quietly, the light in his eyes playful and almost young, “We most certainly noticed that,” he teased. He straightened and reached for a bundle of clothes on the bar. “I picked these up for you, while you were out,” he tossed them over, smiling playfully, and Bo knew he was watching to see if the blanket dropped when she reached to catch them. Kenzi darted forward to snatch them from the air and dropped the bundle carefully in Bo’s lap.

“Har har, Wolf-Boy. You can take the pervy tween out of high school, but you can’t take the high school out of the pervy tween, huh?” Kenzi’s voice was light and teasing, “I bet Hound Dog was written just for you, wasn’t it?”

Dyson gave a deep, barking belly laugh that rang in Bo’s ears and jangled in her head like loose change. Her head ached, but it felt so good to hear him laugh, to have Kenzi nestled so close to her side, to see the smiles that beamed at her from every angle. Her Dawning had been a nightmare. It had been perhaps the hardest experience of her life. But now she was home, with the family she’d thought she’d lost, and her heart swelled with gratitude for them and for the life she’d forged for herself. She’d done good.

But if the Dawning, and her fragmented, heart-breaking, soul-stealing experience in it, had taught her anything, it taught her that she had been taking it, and them, for granted. She had lost sight of who she was and what she stood for. And between her own thoughtless selfishness and the looming threat of her father over them, she could lose all she’d struggled to gain in a heartbeat. She felt the stirrings of rebellion awaken deep in her gut again, felt the need to move, to rise, to fight. Her eyes had adjusted to the lights of the Dal, and she could see that while she’d been numb and sleeping, her family had been awake and alert to the threat. Notes were scribbled across a whiteboard she didn’t know Trick had. Heavy tomes were scattered across every surface, a laptop still glowed mutedly at the bar, and there were empty beer glasses ranged around them all, like little markers of the passage of time. They’d been working for hours.

“Maybe we should give Bo the privacy to change, hmm?” Trick’s gentle, gravelly voice broke Bo’s train of thought. He’d noticed Bo staring at the proofs of their labors, he smiled at her and gave her arm a quick pat. “Go home, get some rest.”

“I don’t want to rest,” her voice sounded stronger now. There was an edge of defiance that seemed to take Trick by surprise. She could feel six sets of eyes staring at her, with varying degrees of surprise and expectation. “I’m so tired of resting.” Bo moved again under the covers, itchy and impatient now to jump back into action, to do what she did best and play the real hero.

“Isn’t that ironic?” the soft, mumbled chuckle beside her drew Bo’s attention to the human that crouched there silently, and Bo found herself smiling despite herself. Tamsin watched her guardedly, Bo could feel the Valkyrie's eyes on her, before she stood from her stool.

“’Bout time, Succu-butt,” Tamsin snarked. And because Bo had finally learned to listen for it, she heard the thin thread of insecurity in her tone that she thought even Tamsin didn’t know was there.

“Bo, you’ve just been through a harrowing experience,” Trick pressured Bo to sit back again, his hand on her shoulder now, and firmer than usual. He raised his eyebrows at Bo, his expression anxious, but Bo wasn’t having it this time. She struggled to sit straighter and wrap the blankets around her as firmly as she could. Kenzi’s arms wound around her, helpful and supportive when Bo moved to stand. The sudden change in altitude made Bo dizzy, her vision swam before her eyes for an instant. Dyson stood with her, his arms slightly outstretched to catch her should she fall, but she braced herself, and when her vision settled, stared down at Trick with a frown. He breathed out sharply and leaned away, as if taken aback. Bo knew her expression must never have looked so disapproving. “You’re dehydrated,” he continued, his voice lower and softer, consoling, “the Dawning takes a lot out of you. And you look like you’ve been through hell.”

“Yeah, I have,” she answered sharply, “which is why I can’t rest anymore. My father is coming for us, for better or worse, and we have to be ready.” Bo steeled herself, drew the blankets tighter around her naked body. She looked from one face to the next, stared into each set of eyes with such gravity that they knew Bo was done playing. “My mother. The Garuda. O’Meara. The Dawning. We were never prepared. Not once. Whoever he is,” Bo gestured at the whiteboard with all the names of all the Fae they suspected he might be, “The Wanderer, Odin, Elvis, whoever… he played us. He made Lauren believe that those tests she took in O’Meara’s dungeon were positive – ”

“Lauren shouldn’t have told you about that.” Trick sounded angry and worried, his brow was scrunched in a furious frown and his hands twisted into fists beside him. Bo stared down at her grandfather, the only link she had to her past, and felt anger stir in her chest for his outrage. Her nostrils flared, but she checked her temper.

“No. You should have,” she answered softly, “and you and I will talk about when you were planning to tell me.” Her voice sounded hard and cold. She was angry that Trick had kept this from her, angry that he had left it to Lauren to tell Bo such a difficult truth. But she also knew that it hardly mattered. Trick drew in a breath and held his hands in front of him, his shoulders squared and his mouth drawn in a strong, defiant line. “Later,” Bo murmured. There were more important things to deal with now. Like who her father really was and what he wanted from her, and what all of it meant for the Fae, humans, and the people most important in Bo’s life. “Keep working,” Bo nodded at the group arranged around her, “we have a lot to figure out and not a lot of time to figure it out in.”

When Lauren was done with her debriefing with the Ash, Bo would go to see her. It wasn’t only the reconciliation she wanted, to make things right between them, it was also that Lauren was a genius, that she knew almost as much about Fae lore as Trick did, and her help in this was invaluable. With one hand clutching the blankets around her chest and the other scooping the bundle of clothes Kenzi held out for her, Bo strode to the stairs that led down to Trick’s lair. Her legs felt like jelly, her whole body was sore, but she felt strong, refreshed, focused.

“Where are you going?” Maia spoke for the second time since Bo had woken up. Her voice sounded less small now, and when Bo turned to look at her, found that she was already standing beside her laptop, with one hand on the keys and the other adjusting the screen. Maia was staring at her, and though her voice was hesitant and insecure, Bo saw the spark of determination and defiance lighting in her small dark eyes.

“To get dressed,” Bo was at the door now, and everyone but Trick and Stella had mobilized into research mode again, “you’ll brief me on what you know, and then I’m going to get Lauren and we’re going to figure this out. Together.”

 


	29. Chapter 29

Sunlight streamed in through the Dal’s windows, flecked with motes of dust kicked up by every rug and every drape. Shapes, dappled in sunlight and shadow, scurried under the smoky beams, busily preparing for the most publicized Light event of the year: the new Ash’s Inauguration. Though none of the furnishings had changed in the Dal’s main dining room, it didn’t look remotely familiar. Tables and chairs and couches had been rearranged to create an enormous space in the middle of the chamber, where a second stage had been set up for the ceremony itself. The chairs usually arranged around long, communal wooden trestles and smaller, more intimate tables were lined around the sides of the room, even the pool table that dominated the only clear portion of the pub had been removed to make space. It looked smaller, somehow, with all its furniture cleared and moved to the sides, less intimate, less like the second home Bo had come to recognize it as.

Bo swept past the legion of Fae and Fae-owned humans that scuttled and hurried to clean and prepare the Dal for the momentous occasion. The way the Dal had changed within a few short hours from bar to political hall was disturbing, but there were far more pressing matters to tend to. And there were still a few areas of the sprawling pub that hadn’t, and wouldn’t be, touched. Fae scattered around her as she charged through the Dal’s main floor and barreled into the little private chamber and slammed the door behind her.

“Tamsin?!”

“Not so loud!” Tamsin hissed sharply from behind her. Her footsteps tapped quietly on the waxed wooden floors as she slipped across the closed door and locked it, “do you want the Light to have me executed for gatecrashing one of their parties?!”

“Did you find her?” Bo’s voice hushed, but didn’t lose its urgency. It was much dimmer in this windowless room, and half the Dal’s furniture had been shoved in to make space in the main chamber. They lay haphazardly and disorganized, jumbled together amongst the private room’s own couches and tables, like hulking monsters crouched and snarling in the semi darkness. The electric lamps ranged along the walls were on their dimmest setting, and emanated a stingy, mean orange light that set every unfamiliar line in threatening relief. Bo’s face, tight and tense and worried, looked strangely alien in it.

Tamsin pressed her lips together in a thin line. Her eyebrows drew together and her jaw clenched, and she took a few steps closer to Bo. Her sandals tapped against the wooden floorboards quietly as she walked.

“No,” her voice fell to a whisper, colored with regret, “I searched her apartment again, there’s nothing. She left enough food in the cat’s bowl for a month.”

“Lauren doesn’t have a cat,” Bo snapped back irritably. Lauren had been missing for the past three days, she hadn’t answered a single text, a single call. Hale had answered when Bo confronted him that he’d given Lauren the weekend off, but it was Monday evening, and Lauren still hadn’t returned. And Bo was worried.

“I know that,” Tamsin’s voice sharpened a little, and her expression turned from regretful to sour, “I’m just saying…” she trailed off, her tone softening ever so slightly, “she’s gone.”

Silence rippled between the two women, taut and fraught with tension. Bo stared pale-faced at the Valkyrie that stood apologetically before her. She wasn’t angry at Tamsin, it hadn’t been Tamsin’s fault that Lauren had disappeared. But Tamsin twitched uncomfortably and glared back at the Succubus whose attention was fixed wholly on her.

“She can’t be gone,” Bo murmured finally, her features trembled on her face for an instant, lost somewhere between worried and furious, before the corners of her mouth fell and she dropped her gaze, “I need her, she can’t be gone.”

Tamsin took a cautious step forward, and hesitantly raised a hand to drift along Bo’s shoulder. “We all need her. I’m not exactly suited to fixing limbs, just breaking them.” Tamsin’s voice was soft, and heavy and somber, “Maia’s been looking for her too. But she’s gone completely off the grid. It’s like she suddenly decided to not exist.”

“She has to be somewhere, Tamsin,” Bo spun on her heel and twisted away from the hand poised hesitantly over her shoulder. She was anxious, irritated. The question of who her father was still hung menacingly in the air, and Bo needed, now more than ever, to know that the people she cared about were safe. That Lauren, whom she’d left with mean, angry words, was safe. “You’ve checked the Dark compound? The Morrigan’s dungeons?”

Tamsin made a frustrated sound, and when Bo turned again to look at her, found that her hands were crossed tightly, defensively over her chest and her expression was twisted into one of resentment and offended exasperation. “I’m not exactly Dark Fae of the frikkin’ year, Bo. I snooped. I didn’t find anything. She’s gone, okay?!”

“Yeah, ‘never heard ‘expulsion’ sound so threatening before’, I know,” Bo mumbled under her breath. The bright sunshine of the school’s courtyard from her Dawning flashed briefly in her mind’s eye; though Bo had passed through her Dawning, succeeded in evolving, she still dreamt about the things she’d seen in it, every restless night.

“Excuse me?” Tamsin drew forward, her brow creasing with consternation. She looked like she didn’t know whether to be offended, worried, or amused.

“Nothing, never mind,” Bo shrugged off the remnants of the flashback with a wave of her hand and forced herself to calm, for her body to relax. Tamsin was trying to help, she’d been a stauncher ally than Bo had ever given her credit for, and a harsher critic than her friends had ever dared to be, and Bo truly appreciated it. But Tamsin’s snarky attitude had made it hard for Bo to voice her gratitude. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap, I’m just worried,” she added as an afterthought.

“Yeah, I get that,” Tamsin mumbled back. She hugged her arms around her and glanced from left to right, increasingly paranoid about getting caught sneaking around the Dal during such a prestigious Light Fae event. “I’ll keep looking. Maia’s about as stubborn as it gets, we’ll find her.”

It didn’t escape Bo’s notice that Tamsin had already mentioned Maia twice during their short conversation, nor that she’d alluded to needing to care for the stringy human’s broken arm. Bo let out a long, heavy sigh and stepped forward, nearly closing the distance between them. It was odd, seeing Tamsin care so much about another creature, a human no less, but somehow didn’t seem so strange after the realizations she’d made about the bitchy Valkyrie in her Dawning.

“Tamsin, there’s something I need to know,” Bo spoke softly, her words drifted across Tamsin’s face and brushed through long, light strands of blond hair. Tamsin looked down at the Succubus, even in heels, Bo was shorter than Tamsin in flats. Tamsin’s expression was guarded, and a little suspicious. Bo took a deep breath and braced herself, “what happened to that guy from the alleyway,” Bo swallowed, her words sounded so small, “the one I fed from?”

“You mean the guy you drained almost dry and left for dead?” Tamsin responded in a harsh, dry whisper. She looked incredulous for a moment, surprised that Bo was finally owning up to the assault Tamsin had been after her about for weeks. Then her expression softened, turned sad, and Tamsin’s eyes fell to the narrow space of floor between their feet. “He’s dead,” she mumbled, “he ID’d you, then he… died.”

Shock drained Bo’s face of blood. She looked almost sickly under the Dal’s dim lights’ orange glare. Had his death been at her hands? Had she killed another innocent, even after she’d sworn to herself three years ago that she never would again? Tamsin looked at her, saw the horrified expression on Bo’s face, and to Bo’s complete and utter surprise, put her arms around Bo and pulled her into a hug.

“No… not you,” Tamsin’s words rasped in Bo’s ear, strangely comforting, oddly sympathetic, “I shouldn’t have pulled him out of his coma. He was in pain, he wanted to die, so I let him.”

Tamsin wasn’t a hypocrite. Of all the many things she was, this was not one of them. It didn’t surprise Bo, but she didn’t feel any relief wash through her at Tamsin’s confession. “You may have let him die, but I was the one that killed him,” Bo murmured into Tamsin’s hair, her words choked by guilt. Gently, she pulled away from the Valkyrie, unwilling to break the odd moment of compassion by the otherwise seemingly cold and ruthless warrior, but still needing to know one thing more.

“If he ID’d me, why didn’t you tell the Morrigan?”

Tamsin stared at her, and Bo could see the hard veneer she tried so hard to keep together crack and splinter. Green eyes stared into dark brown, swirling with complexity and guarded even now. All Tamsin had ever claimed to have wanted was to bring Bo into the custody of the Dark, to make her pay for the crimes she’d committed against one of her own clan. But given the chance, she hadn’t. Why?

“Why did you admit to attacking him in the first place?” Tamsin answered with a short, rhetorical question of her own. Bo took a step back, her arms crossed over her chest defensively, and she stared at the Valkyrie, assessing and reassessing her own behavior from before and after her Dawning, for the umpteenth time since she’d returned from it. Tamsin stared back at her, then gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod, before leaning away, as if satisfied with the answer she saw lurking in Bo’s eyes.

“Back at Brazenwood…” Bo started again, as another memory occurred to her, “at the Land Lady’s trailer. I pulled a Tarot card. The Wanderer.” Bo frowned at Tamsin, watched her eyes first widen then narrow at the mention of the Tarot card. Tamsin’s reaction to it had been intense, almost frightened, entirely incredulous. The Land Lady had been terrified. Even now, Tamsin looked nervous and uncomfortable. “What was that?”

Tamsin shrugged uneasily, her mouth twisted into a wry grin that looked more like a grimace, and her eyes darkened with her discomfort, with a shadow of fear. But she gave Bo a last awkward pat on the arm and slid backward to the locked door. Bo hadn’t noticed before, but Tamsin was dressed in the same uniform as the workers in the main hall, black dress-pants, black bowtie, black jacket, and if she kept her head down and didn’t make eye contact, no one that didn’t already know she was here would realize she didn’t actually seem to be working. “You tell me, Succu-babe,” she murmured quietly as she crept past, “I might have let you off with a warning this time,” Tamsin continued in a more confident tone, her voice just a little louder this time, “but he was one of mine. You pull shit like that again, on Light or Dark, you can bet your cute little ass I’m coming after you.”

Their eyes met, somber brown eyes with sharp, bright green, and Bo knew Tamsin meant every word. A smile cracked the corners of Tamsin’s mouth, and Bo felt a small smile tug on her lips in response. It sounded like a threat, but Bo felt it was the truest expression of friendship she’d heard in a long time. It was odd, but she somehow felt safer knowing there was someone who cared enough to keep her in line.

And then Tamsin turned the knob and dropped her chin, and long waves of blonde fell over her face and hid it from sight, and she swept out the door with a purpose, camouflaging herself easily amongst the other Fae workers laboring over the preparations of Hale’s Swearing-In ceremony.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, we’re going to take a short break from the two-a-week posting pattern I’ve fallen into for the past month. Next week, we’ll have only one post on Tuesday, but for two weeks after that, I’ll be posting the last chapters twice a week again. We’re officially wrapping up Where the Fae Sun Rises.


	30. Chapter 30

“Hey, Kid, whatcha got there?”

Maia looked up from her laptop. The moniker ‘Kid’ that Tamsin had attached to her had caught on like wildfire, and while it bothered her when people called her that, felt trivialized by the nickname, she never argued it. She’d never had a nickname before, and the novelty of it hadn’t quite worn off yet, even if it irked her when she heard it.

Kenzi was stalking toward her, her strides as quick and graceful as ever. Her heels tapped against the worn asphalt she walked on, and sunlight glinted in her long, black hair, and shimmered when the wind jumped to stir it. With the weather warming so quickly, Kenzi had forgone a jacket and was dressed simply, as simply as the ballerina goth could manage, in a tight half-sleeved black top, a silky black corset, and a pair of leather pants that instantly brought Bo’s striking, bad-ass image to mind. Maia only frowned at her, she didn’t want to call out across the lot, and waited for Kenzi to arrive at the door to Tamsin’s truck. She crossed her arms over the open driver’s side window and peered at the lit computer screen balanced precariously between Maia’s knees and the steering wheel.

“I think I have a hit on Lauren,” Maia started. Quickly, she scrolled through the anonymous chat window open on the screen to the link at the bottom. “I got some anonymous chat invite, promising info on Lauren’s whereabouts. I tried to get a name, an affiliation, anything, all I got was this link and a location.”

“Well, shit, Sherlock, aren’t you gonna open it?!” Kenzi slapped her companionably on her shoulder, and if the situation weren’t so dire, Maia might have smiled at the camaraderie of the gesture. Kenzi’s pale eyes were staring wide-eyed and incredulous at her, though, and she knew that every second mattered in missing-person’s cases – according to her own single experience.

Maia sighed out her frustration and clicked the link, knowing it would result in a loud, angry sounding warning message that imperiously told her she didn’t have the authority to view this video. Her fingers tapped on the keyboard with every circumvention Google offered her, knowing it would result in the same message, over and over again: ‘Access Denied’.

“I tried everything, it’s encrypted. What the hell was the point in sending me a clue I can’t even see?!” Maia snarled at her computer, as if the anonymous tipper might hear her. She clenched her fingers into fists and screwed her eyes shut, annoyed and frustrated with being so helpless. “You’re not a hacker, I know, but you have friends on the web,” Maia opened her eyes and turned her stare onto Kenzi, who frowned back at her through heavily-lined eyes, “we need to see that video. The location is in the link, and I can’t even open it. You have to know someone who can.”

Kenzi seemed to consider her for a second, she peered at Maia through eyes clouded with mistrust. Maia was Tamsin’s pet. And though Bo seemed to have found some way to overlook Tamsin’s past determination to clap her bestie in chains, and to trust the shady Valkyrie, Kenzi had not.

But she wasn’t blind either. Maia cared about Lauren, about the woman who had patched injuries suffered at the hands of the Dark, despite the consequences that might arise with treating someone so definitely affiliated with the cold enemy of the Light. It was a loyalty Kenzi understood. So she popped the door’s handle and pulled it open.

“Scootch!” Kenzi instructed, and pushed Maia over to the passenger seat so she could hop in behind the wheel. The laptop in Maia’s lap shifted to Kenzi’s. “You go after Lauren, I’m coming with. She’s saved Bo’s ass enough times to earn my loyalty too.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Bo waited for almost ten minutes after Tamsin went, spending the time she calculated Tamsin needed to get away unnoticed and to lower any chances of being noticed leaving together by pulling her own scattered emotions under a carefully constructed mask of disinterest. When she finally slid past the cracked open door, the main hall of the Dal looked spotless, ready to receive the important political guests invited to Hale’s ceremony. Most of the workers that had filled the bar were gone, and only a few remained behind the gleaming front line of the taps, folding napkins and going over last minute preparations with Trick. Bo smiled and nodded at her grandfather, who only looked at her and dipped his chin in response. Hale was in a corner, still dressed in jeans and a vest and sports jacket, and confirmed seating arrangements with one of the staff.

Bo squared her shoulders. Things between her and Hale were tense now, after Bo had harassed him over the whereabouts of the missing Dr. Lauren, and judging by the icy stare in his eyes as he looked at her, he hadn’t forgotten.

Bo sidled up to Hale, determined to ask him again about Lauren, and he dismissed the dark young man that attended him with an imperious flick of his wrist and turned his attention to Bo.

“What is it, Bo?” He spoke quietly, but Bo could hear the annoyance that strained his voice and strangled his words, “I’m pressed for time.”

Bo drew in a deep breath and braced herself, “I know you said Lauren went on a vacation - ,”

“A vacation she requested to spend some time away from you, I might add,” Hale interrupted, his eyes flashing dangerously at Bo. Bo felt herself tense, she clenched her jaw and counted to five under her breath to fight her anger with the power-smitten Siren that growled insults at her.

“It’s Monday, Hale,” Bo ground out, “she should be back by now. Where is she?”

Hale wasn’t looking at her anymore. Another of his lackeys had run up beside his elbow, with another list in his hands and focused concentration wrinkling his brow. Hale looked over the list, pointed at a few scribbled notes and murmured something to his attendant, who nodded and rushed away. Hale took his time looking at Bo again and considering her question, as if he’d carelessly forgotten and only just bothered to remember.

“She’s extended her stay. She confirmed it with me this afternoon. Now if you’ll please excuse me,” he brushed past her, and Bo struggled to keep her temper in check, “I have a ceremony in my honor to attend to. Goodbye, Bo.”

Bo stood in place, seething with anger and clenching her fists, crossed over her chest, until her palms screamed with the pain her nails dug into her skin. Hale had been her friend once. Not with the same intimacy that Dyson, Kenzi or Lauren boasted, but a friend nonetheless. The way he behaved now, the blasé manner in which he dismissed her concerns and pushed her aside, pissed her off as much as it hurt her. She didn’t believe that Lauren was on vacation, didn’t believe that Lauren would leave at such an important junction in Hale’s transferal of power and responsibilities, and didn’t believe that Lauren would leave without saying goodbye to her first. No matter how painful their last encounter, no matter how difficult it would be to share a room with Bo, she would have said goodbye. Bo knew that, intrinsically. She knew Lauren would have at least wanted to see her after her Dawning, to make sure that Bo was okay.

By the time Bo spun around, Hale had already disappeared down into Trick’s lair, where he would change into his suit and rehearse his speech one last time before the ceremony started.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Kenzi had warned her that it might take some time. Her hacker friend hadn’t been online, and even if she were, it would take her some time to figure out the defenses set up on the encrypted link, and find a way to grant them access. So they set the laptop precariously on the dashboard of the truck, and though Maia had voted on spending the wait with reading, Kenzi had overruled her. Now, Maia was getting her hands supremely slapped by the girl in front of her.

“Ow! That smarts!” Maia shook her hands, wincing at the sharp sting that warmed the backs of her hands. Kenzi only grinned triumphantly at her and held her hands out, palm up, to play again. “Seriously, Kenz?” Maia growled a little indignantly at her, but couldn’t hide the smile that peeked out the corner of her mouth, “I’m tired of getting slapped around. Your turn to be bitch.”

“Oh, honey, I’m never bitch,” Kenzi laughed, “but I’ll give you a try. Remember, you don’t get a touch, and your back to being bitch. Again.”

The game was a little tiresome for Maia, whose reflexes were never quick. The backs of her hands stung where they weren’t numb, and her pale skin had turned as red as a ripe tomato. But it had Kenzi laughing, and it gave Maia the slightest surge of adrenaline to play, and staring at a laptop screen waiting for something to happen was so painfully boring that watching the grass outside the lot grow was more fun. And she supposed that maybe, just maybe, she was a bit of a sore loser.

So she stuck out her hands, palm up, and allowed Kenzi’s hands to settle over hers. They were warm with slapping her silly, and soft.

But before Maia had the chance to feint a slap, her laptop dinged, loud and clear in the challenging silence that hung over the girls in the truck. And Maia’s reflexes, for the first time, were faster than Kenzi’s in snatching the laptop from the dashboard and pulling it into her lap.

“She did it!” Maia was elated and apprehensive all at once, it stretched her voice thin and tremulous. Kenzi cleared her throat, her hands outstretched for the computer, and waited imperiously for Maia to hand it over.

“Of course she did. She kicks almost as much ass as moi. Let me see.”

Maia reluctantly passed the laptop over, and Kenzi immediately started typing and mumbling under her breath, no doubt thanking and praising her hacker friend over chat. Footsteps crunched over gravel around the passenger side of the car, and a look in the side-view mirror revealed Tamsin, still dressed in her fake uniform, stomping up to the window.

“Can you believe they actually thought I was there to work?!” Tamsin growled, her voice thin with annoyance, and leaned back against the truck’s side, “actually had me moving shit around for the stupid suckage ceremony.”

“Tamsin!” Maia craned her neck around to greet the Valkyrie, her pale face oddly flushed with the thrill of victory and a triumphant smile to match Kenzi’s stretched broadly over her face. “We think we found Lauren. Come look!” Tamsin frowned at the human and threw an arm over the windowsill to lean in.

“We?” Tamsin reiterated, her frown deepening at the sight of Kenzi, sitting in the driver’s seat of _her_ truck. “Did you let her drive?” Tamsin sounded annoyed, but pulled the door open and squeezed in beside Maia, “What the fuck, Kid?”

“As if anyone would ever actually _want_ to drive this P.O.S.,” Kenzi snarked from beside her, her eyes never leaving the screen. Maia thought she could actually hear the steam coming out of Tamsin’s ears, she grabbed Tamsin’s wrist and pulled her closer to look.

“No. Just watch, start the video, Kenz.”

The laptop traveled back to its owner’s lap, stuck in the middle, bitch again, between Tamsin and Kenzi. The link had opened, and with it, a video. Snow crackled on the screen silently, and then flickered into darkness.

Pale light shone diagonally across the screen. Two figures faded into view, one tied up in a chair, and the other standing guard over a pale, rectangular shape. There was no sound, only Maia’s heart beating in her ears and the tense, controlled breathing of the women on either side of her. The woman in the chair was bound and gagged, with her back to the camera. But her lean, long figure was unmistakable, like the long, blond hair that hung below her shoulders and the stiff, tense position she sat in. It was Lauren.

A slit widened over three lines of the rectangle, bright, glowing light crept through the door, and a black shape slipped through it.

“Shit,” Tamsin whispered under her breath. Maia didn’t dare turn her face to read the expression on Tamsin’s. They both recognized the woman that slid through the door and shut it behind her, even before the light in the room was switched on and the figures cloaked in darkness faced the light.

When the laptop chirped, all three women jumped in their seats. Another message from Anonymous flashed at the bottom right of the screen.

_[ - Okay, I lied. The location isn’t in the video. Can you guess where she is? - ]_

“Okay…” Kenzi’s voice was soft, but tense. She stared between Maia and Tamsin, and knew instantly by the shocked expressions on their faces that they could indeed guess where Lauren was being held. Worry crept across her face, her eyes wide and a single eyebrow raised in concern. “I give up, where is she?”

“But you checked the Dark compound!” Maia’s face was pale, and her voice sharp, when she spun to face Tamsin. Anger gnawed at her tone. “You said she wasn’t there!”

“I said I didn’t find her!” Tamsin growled back. Her own face was pale, and her eyes glimmered darkly, but she didn’t look at Maia, and didn’t look at Kenzi. Instead, with numb hands and tingling fingertips, she pulled out her phone and tossed it into Maia’s lap. “Call Bo. I’m going in alone. And you – !” Tamsin turned her furious eyes on Maia, then on Kenzi, who snarled back at the perceived threat, “ – you’re going to the Dal. Stay with Bo. I’m not starting a war over some stupid human.”

The door flew open, but Kenzi’s fingers darted out to dig deep into Tamsin’s shoulder and her outstretched arm pressed Maia hard against the back of her seat. Her icy gray-blue eyes were ablaze. “Like hell.” Kenzi’s voice was a cold, furious whisper, “I’m going with you. And you’re an idiot if you think Bo’s going to stay put at your orders, Skeletor.”

Maia held still, the elbow Kenzi dug into her chest spread pressurized pain across her collarbone. Her casted arm throbbed and itched, and honestly, she didn’t care if Kenzi came or didn’t, she just wanted to go in there and get Lauren. “I’m coming too,” Maia turned to glare at Tamsin slowly, the Valkyrie’s green eyes glittered like emeralds, sharp and cold and cutting, when they turned on her, “end of story.”

The three seconds it took for Tamsin to decide she didn’t have time for a mutiny felt like three minutes. She yanked her arm out of Kenzi’s grasp and jumped out of the truck. “Fuck both of you,” she growled, “you have a deathwish, be my guests.” She slammed the door behind her and stalked around to the back of her truck.

“And don’t –“ Maia spun to face Kenzi, her own brown eyes dark with anger and a snarl twisting her thin lips, “ – ever call her that.” She knocked Kenzi’s arm away from her chest with her casted arm, scowling furiously at the graying plaster, and thumped it into her hand like it was a weapon. Kenzi snorted in reply, and twisted in her seat to stare through the grimy back window to stare at Tamsin.

“What the hell is she doing?” the anger had fallen out of Kenzi’s voice, replaced with impatience and anxiety. But her voice was loud enough to carry through the open windows to outside. Tamsin glared at her through the filthy glass and tore a tank top and pair of pants from the duffel in the trunk’s bed.

“Changing,” the Valkyrie barked back, “now make the damn call!”

 

 

* * *

 

 

It was funny: after her Dawning, Bo thought things would be different. That her life would change, the relationships that were once so complicated would suddenly simplify, and like magic, all the puzzle pieces would simply fall into place.

For a few hours after she’d exited her Dawning, things had been different. She felt new, reborn, and everything had seemed so clear to her. She’d found purpose, and strength, and with almost all her friends and family with her at the Dal, had felt like the dynamics of her family had changed too. But this feeling of newness, of strength and understanding, hadn’t lasted very long. The threads of her life remained tangled and torn, the way she’d left them when she’d entered the Temple. And without Bo there to sort them, and patch the holes together, why should they?

Now, she was left feeling almost as lost as ever. Lauren was gone. The faith and friendship she’d found in Tamsin was tense and uneasy – though she knew she trusted Tamsin, she felt like Tamsin didn’t really trust her. She was still furious with Trick for the secret he kept, the secret he asked Lauren to keep, and found that she hadn’t been able to overlook it, and trust him again. Bo couldn’t shake the feeling that there was still more that he was hiding from her, that there would always be more that he would keep hiding from her. And though Kenzi laughed and joked and played and drank like the girl that had become Bo’s sister almost four years ago, there was a vulnerability in the curve of her mouth and an insecurity in the shadow of her eyes and the line of her back that terrified her.

She had passed through her Dawning, but three days later, sitting in Trick’s lair alone, she found she was still at square one.

The door creaked, the sounds of bustle above drifted down, carried on the toes of Trick’s boots as he clattered downstairs. Bo drew in a deep breath, her sense of smell was back to normal, but the scent of old books and rich wood and dusty rugs lingered in the corners of the room and stirred with every movement. She rubbed a hand over the rough cloth of the couch she sat on and waited for Trick’s black boots to appear on the steps. Despite herself – he was her dearly beloved grandfather – she tensed.

“Bo,” Trick’s gravelly voice sounded concerned, “everything OK? Did you find Lauren?” He approached his granddaughter with arms outstretched. He was already dressed for the event, in handsome black slacks and shiny black boots, a crisp white shirt and a vest Bo had never seen before that glittered with green and silver detail. It was the nicest Bo had seen him dressed since Stella had left the city.

She was still angry with him for keeping her father’s non-identity a secret. But still, she put her hands in his and leaned in close when he sat beside her. She was angry, and her trust in him was uneasy, but she still loved her grandfather, still felt comforted by his smile and the warmth of his shoulder against hers.

“No, not yet,” she mumbled, feeling drained and so lost, she just wanted to lie down and go back to sleep.

Trick frowned at her, his lips pressed tightly together and the concern in his brown eyes unmistakable. “I saw you speak with Hale. What did he say?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she replied in a gust of frustrated air, “he’s lying to me. Why does everyone always lie to me?” Bo’s eyes squeezed shut and she dropped her face into her hands. She hated sounding weak, whiny and pathetic, but it was a question that had always plagued her. And she was so damn sick of being lied to.

“He’s the Ash now, Bo,” Trick spoke gently, he put his arm around her and pretended not to notice when Bo’s shoulders tensed beneath the weight of it. Still, his regret over Bo’s anger flickered across his features for a moment, and he didn’t remove his arm. “Lauren’s safety is of great concern to him. He won’t let anything happen to her.”

“Lauren’s safety, or Lauren’s servitude?” Bo snorted. The last time she’d seen Lauren, that necklace, that collar, had still been around her neck. Bo had hoped that with Hale as the Ash, that it would stop being a symbol of Lauren’s captivity, and be a symbol of strength. Those hopes had turned into fears that the stupid necklace, and the symbolism it carried, would choke her instead.

“Her safety.” Trick’s voice was reprimanding, but not unkind. When Bo turned her face to him he smiled at her encouragingly, but Bo didn’t feel encouraged. “Why would you think he’s lying to you?”

Something akin to anger and frustration twisted in Bo’s chest. She hated that she didn’t trust the smile her grandfather offered her, or the softness of his words, but she knew Hale was lying to her, and Trick’s refusal to believe her boiled low in her gut and spread fire through her veins. He was her family, but Kenzi and Maia and Tamsin were the ones that believed her, that looked for Lauren with her.

“I just know,” her voice was low, cold and steely, and Trick shrank away from her a little, his eyes radiating hurt and his mouth pressed into a worried line. Bo didn’t want to see him like this, didn’t want to be a source of pain or anxiety for him, but she couldn’t simply ignore his secrecy and deception anymore.

Her phone vibrated, and Bo jumped to pull it out from its usual snug hiding-place to answer it. It was already warm when she pressed it against her ear.

“Hey, Kenz. Where are you?” Bo missed her best friend, needed her here, felt the cold empty lack of her, and was glad that she’d called.

“Bo!” Kenzi’s voice crackled through the speaker, sounding jumbled and excited and jittery, “don’t get too excited yet, it’s just a lead. A damn good lead, and Tamsin and Maia seem to know exactly where we’re going – “ Her words tumbled and tripped over the trembling line, sending a jolt of electricity humming through Bo’s nerves and Bo jumping to her feet.

“You found her?!” Bo almost cried into the phone, her voice a choked mess between fear and hope.

“Almost...” Kenzi hesitated, Bo wished she could grab her arm and shake her through the faltering telephone line, “we think we know where she is. Tamsin’s driving us there right now.”

Bo wanted to scream her relief, but Kenzi still hadn’t told her where Lauren was. Her pulse pounded in her ears, she spun on her heel to grab her jacket from the coat-rack by the stairs.

“Well, where is she?” Bo’s own voice sounded distant to her ears. Trick cleared his throat behind her, and absently, Bo wondered why it sounded so much louder and more immediate than her own voice.

Static crackled through the line for an instant, a voice spoke unintelligibly on the other side.

“Kenzi!” Bo barked through the speaker, elated and terrified at once that she would finally find Lauren and make sure she was safe. And make amends. But Kenzi’s reluctance to tell Bo where she was sent a flare of cold fear from her toes to her chest.

“Dark compound,” Kenzi’s voice finally crackled through the line, quiet, almost inaudible.

“Go home, Kenzi!” Bo’s jacket was over her shoulders, one foot was on the stairs when Trick’s hand clamped down on her wrist. “Take Maia with you, I’ll meet Tamsin there.” She refused to risk Kenzi’s life. She refused to find Lauren, only to lose Kenzi. She loved them both, needed them both. And if the Dark had taken Lauren, the Ward of the Ash, then it could only be the first act of the war that had been brewing between the sides for centuries.

“No frakkin’ way, Bo. I’m doing this, with you, because dammit, that’s the way it’s always been, that’s the way it’s going to be.” Kenzi’s voice was final, it rang in Bo’s ears, and Bo felt her lungs deflate and a small smile curve the corners of her lips. She closed her eyes, and in the blackness inside her eyelids, saw the many faces of the many Kenzis in every scenario her Dawning had presented her with – each one abandoned by her, time and again. Because Kenzi would never be the one to abandon her instead.

“Succu-slacker, you there?!” Kenzi’s voice crackled again on the other line, and Bo had to draw in a deep breath and force the images that crowded behind her eyelids to dispel before clearing her throat into the phone.

“Yeah, Kenz. I’m here. Just don’t go in without me, okay?” Bo hesitated, Trick’s fingers were still clamped tightly around her wrist, and every second counted now. Her heart was fit to burst with the anticipation of seeing Lauren again, and with fear for what the Dark might have done to her. “I’m on my way,” she breathed into the phone, and without waiting for an answer, tapped the ‘end call’ button and slid it into its snug hiding place between her breasts again.

“Dark compound?” Trick’s gravelly voice was soft, he frowned up at her, and Bo wasn’t sure if the expression that lit his face was anger, or worry. His fingers were like steel around her arm.

Bo turned to face him, her feet square with her shoulders, and a look akin to defiance in her eyes. “Dark compound,” she confirmed, her voice low, but steely. “What was that you were saying about Hale’s concern with Lauren’s safety?” She jerked her arm out of his grasp, rubbed her sore wrist gently and glared down at him a moment longer. When she spoke again, her words were softer, less angry, “I have to go get Lauren, now, if you’ll excuse me.”

She stalked up the stairs, the harsh tapping of her booted feet on scuffed wood unheard by the grandfather she left behind. Trick stared after her for a few moments, his eyebrows drawing together slowly, and his hands clenching into slow, tight fists on either side of him.

“And so…” Trick’s voice crept into the waiting silence that suffused his home, his, but utterly alien all the same, “it begins…”

Carefully, as though it took a conscious effort to do so, he unfolded his hands on either side of him, and drew one, leathery palm over his chin and beard, then dropped his hand to his side again. Then he turned, took careful stock of his home, tussled and unorganized to the stranger’s eye, but homey and lived-in to his, and began to pack.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only one chapter this week. It’s a bit crazy, it jumps around a lot, but separating any segments just made the chunks into too small of a chapter. Next week, we’ll go back to two a week for the remaining four chapters.


	31. Chapter 31

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We’re back to two chapters a week for the last two weeks. Four chapters left, including this one!

“Trick?” Hale’s voice preceded him downstairs to Trick’s darkened lair, “they said you wanted to talk?”

Trick stood for a moment, his home looked the same as usual. Nothing looked missing. He turned when the sound of Hale’s feet on the wooden steps stopped, and stared up at Hale for a moment, calculatingly.

The Siren was dressed to the nines – fine tailored suit, the best his Fae stylist could put together, on short notice or long, handsome leather shoes, a handsome green kerchief in the front pocket. He looked good, Ash-material, almost. Given the opportunity, he might have made a fine Ash after all. He’d done a lot in his short time as acting Ash: unveiled the corruption at Hecuba prison, established himself as a leader among his own people and a force to be reckoned with among the Dark. The new regulations he’d helped to draft, that were waiting for his signature once he became Ash, were solid and meaningful. Trick was quite proud of his protégée.

“Where’s Lauren?” Trick’s gravelly voice was low, and carried a note of warning. Hale’s expression, open and friendly, flickered and closed. His brows drew into a tight frown and his lips pressed together tersely.

“Safe,” was Hale’s singular, flinty reply. Trick sighed and rubbed his forehead with his fingers, now was not the time for alpha male posturing, and Hale knew who was really in charge here.

Still, Trick struggled to control his impatience, “What did you tell Bo?”

“The first time she came at me?” Hale’s dark eyes glittered with irritation, “The same thing every time she came at me. Dr. Lewis is taking a few days off.” Hale drew himself up and clasped his hands behind him, looking down his nose imperiously at the Blood Sage that stood before him. Bo had been after him for three days to bring Lauren back, vacation or not, and keep her close and safe. But Hale knew that Lauren was safe, and there was nothing a Succubus who refused to align herself with the Light could do or say to make him change his mind about where he’d sent her.

“Then why does my granddaughter, and her friends, seem to think she’s at the Dark compound?” there was anger laced with exasperation in Trick’s tone now, but rather than aggravate the Siren that glared down at him from his doorway, it seemed to confuse him.

Hale sighed, took a step forward, then cleared his throat, “She isn’t. Their intel is wrong,” he stopped for a second, stared at Trick calculatingly, then drew himself up again. “I took precautions. Dr. Lewis is safe.”

“I’ll ask you again, Hale,” Trick stared at Hale, his expression severe and his hands tense and beginning to clench at his sides, “Where’s Lauren?”

Hale looked at Trick again, stared at the Blood King with grave consideration, then moved to the couch and sat down. “Bo’s father contacted me,” his reply was softly spoken, but resolute. If Trick was surprised, he didn’t show it. “The Dark are planning an attack, tonight. The truce is broken, war will be declared. Dr. Lewis has a part to play, and has to be kept safe. She’s with him.”

This took the old bartender aback. He stared at Hale for a moment, drinking in the information Hale offered, then moved to sit beside Hale on his couch, in the same spot his granddaughter had occupied only minutes ago.

“Bo’s father is Dark, Hale. Did you forget?” he spoke like Hale was a child, playing at being a hero. His voice was gentle, but his hands gripped his thighs and his nails dug into his skin through the thin material of his pants almost painfully. “Why would you trust a single word that came out of his mouth?”

Hale brushed off his concerns easily, brushed away the saccharine tone of his words and put a hand on Trick’s shoulder to soothe him. “He’s done with the double partisan system, Trick. He’s aware that war is coming, but he’s not starting it.” Hale paused for a moment, and an expression of doubt and worry crossed his dark features, “He also said he was working with you. That you sent the first signal that it was time.”

“Sir?” A voice floated down the steps with the slow creak of Trick’s front door being opened. “The ceremony is starting. The Morrigan is here.”

“The Morrigan?!” Trick stood, his voice angry and anxious, but Hale pacified him with one hand gripped on his shoulder, and rose too.

“I invited her here,” he explained quietly, “if she’s really planning an attack against the Light, I’d rather have her where I can see her. And where I can kill her.”

“I didn’t send a first signal, Hale,” Trick whispered furiously, his face darkening with his anger, “Bo’s father, or whomever claimed to be him, played you for a fool. Lauren is at the Morrigan’s compound, and you have lost a vital asset to this war that they’ve initiated.” His hands were balled into tight fists now, his knuckles white and shaking.

Hale didn’t react, he stared at the Blood King for a moment longer, assessing and reassessing his accusations, and recalling and re-examining every interaction he’d had with Bo’s father, and the handler he’d used to mediate between them. Finally, a slow smile crossed Hale’s face. He didn’t know who had told the Succubus that Lauren was at the Dark compound, but he knew she must be wrong. He shifted to stand squarely in front of Trick, put both hands on the Blood King’s shoulders, and looked him directly in the eye. “What proof of that have you seen, Old Man?” he spoke gently, kindly, but the affectionate endearment didn’t ease the tension in Trick’s shoulders. “Lauren is safe. I took precautions, and I believe in what Bo’s father stands for. Bo and Bo’s friends think wrong, and Lauren is safe.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Bo remembered the last time she’d driven like this. Her own Dawning had reminded her, and it was like a double whammy to the gut. All over again, her fingers clenched around the steering wheel so tight they cramped, and her knuckles were stretched and white against the black vinyl of the steering wheel. Her foot was heavy on the gas, her heart pounding so heavily in her chest she thought it might break out and spit hot blood all over the dashboard.

It wasn’t only her fear for Lauren. That would have been enough. The thought of Lauren in the Morrigan’s hands, toyed with, tortured, turned mad, speared like white fire through her. But she should have yelled at Kenzi to get the hell home, and at the time, she’d believed Kenzi was safe. But a nagging worry in her gut told her she was not. She tried to console herself with the faith she had in Tamsin, the Valkyrie would keep her safe, and Bo believed that completely. But what if Tamsin was outnumbered? What if Tamsin was torn out of the picture? What if Tamsin just couldn’t protect her? The idea of losing the two most important women in her life was too overwhelming, so Bo gunned the engines and ran red lights, ignored the sound of sirens wailing and cars screaming around her, and drove like a madwoman toward the Dark compound.

The streets all looked the same to her, and Bo was in a dizzying panic. She didn’t realize that the next left turn had been two blocks further away than it should have been. Buildings grew instantly on either side of her, mysteriously, magically, but Bo didn’t seem to notice. It all looked right, and Bo was too consumed by her excitement, her fear, to realize that every hairpin, screaming turn she took was a few blocks too close, or too far away. She smelled the burnt rubber of tires, but not the scorched earth of the outskirts of town. The sirens had rung so loudly in her ears she didn’t notice when they died away. The crossed warning signs, a pair of wooden two-by-fours painted a startling pitch-black and sunny-yellow, looked like a crosswalk she could just fly through. The sheer, sudden drop beyond only a gentle decline as she drove deeper into the heart of the city.

When Bo finally noticed that she had been driving past the same clothing boutiques and hair salons every five blocks for the past six left-hand swerves and right-hand slides, her front tires had already hit air. Splinters of shockingly painted wood were scattering across her windshield and falling like debris into her hair and the backseat. By the time she’d managed to slam her foot onto the brake pedal, her back tires were spinning uselessly into hot air. Black smoke skirted around her, and ate her whole.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

His man was right. When Hale hit the top step and slipped through the low arching lintel of Trick’s door into the Dal, it was full and busy with Fae nobles and politicos. They greeted his arrival with applause and dignified nods, then turned back disinterestedly to their cocktails and loaded conversations.

Hale strode through the crowd around him, ignoring polite hellos and offended glares, and hopped up onto the stage on which he’d been meant to accept the official title of Ash. Evony was in the wings, smiling coyly at him, and she approached him with such graceful calm and easy confidence, Hale wondered if what Trick had angrily told him was true: if Barr had truly deceived him into giving away his bishop to the Dark, and had cornered him into a flawless, elegant check. Evony’s fingers spread across the lapel of his jacket, smoothing it down and plucking idly at the kerchief in his pocket. She smelled dizzying, an intoxicating combination of perfume and powerful pheromones, but Hale ignored it, spending a lot of time drawing up treaties with the Leanan Sidhe had allowed him to grow accustomed to it.

“If it wasn’t punishable by death, I’d give you a taste,” Evony murmured to him, her smile coy and seductive, and the graceful arch of her shoulders relaxed, as though she knew she’d already won. She leaned in close, he could feel her breath warm his neck when she hummed at him, “handsome.” Her fingers plucked at the lapels of his jacket, she curled away from him, her mouth only inches from his, still curved into that sly, dangerous smile.

Hale stared down at her. She was too confident, too comfortable amongst enemies to not have something planned. He believed whole-heartedly that what Barr had told him was true: that she’d planned an attack against the Light this very evening. He only wondered if she would wait until after his inauguration to attack. Slowly, he enveloped her hands in his and drew them down, his expression stony and cold. She couldn’t possibly have his Ward, though, could she? Barr had contacted him as an ally, had offered his services. Hale had believed the old Fae wouldn’t betray him, but Trick’s angry words resonated within him again, and he began to wonder…

“Hale,” a rough, gentle voice came from behind him, and drew Evony’s attention away. The Morrigan took a step back and winked at Hale like they were in on a little joke together. Hale frowned, unease stirred within him. Why would Bo believe that Lauren was at the Dark Compound if it wasn’t true? And Barr was Dark, he’d been up front about his old allegiances. The Morrigan looked far too smug and gleeful, and Hale’s suspicion and distrust magnified with every slow second that passed. “They’re ready for your speech,” Dyson stepped close to Hale, his hand was heavy on Hale’s shoulder, and it squeezed the tense muscles there to bring Hale’s attention to the task at hand. Hale turned slowly to face his old partner, and felt the weight of his cares press harder on his shoulders than Dyson’s easy grip. The Wolf smiled cautiously at him, sensing that something wasn’t right.

But Hale nodded, and Dyson stepped back, withdrawing his hand, and gave him a lopsided grin to encourage him to step forward. Evony stepped back as well, her hands clasped elegantly in front of her to watch the new Ash, and her new biggest rival, be inaugurated as the leader of the Light. Hale stepped forward. The podium was on a low pedestal, and with his feet heavy, he stepped up and grasped the sides of the podium with both hands. His knuckles whitened with his grip. His people, the nobles and political leaders of the Light, stood and stared up at him expectantly, waiting for their new leader to give a rousing speech that none of them expected really meant much of anything. He’d done more than they’d ever expected, even as the Acting Ash, had done so much to forge an alliance with the Dark, to strengthen them as a clan, to protect his subjects and their interests. But still, they stared at him with something akin to distrust and uncertainty. Perhaps they were right to distrust him. Barr had so easily played him, and now Hale knew he’d lost a vital asset, and a dear friend, to the sinuous deceptions of the Dark. Betrayal burned like acid in his gut.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Hale started, cleared his throat, his anger a clear, colorless thrum that rushed in his ears, “friends and fellow nobles.” He leaned back a little, pulled one hand from the podium and turned to point it accusingly at Evony. “We are at war!”

Hale’s voice echoed across the corners of the room, Evony stared at him, one eyebrow raised in offended confusion, and all the others of the room staring awkwardly and uncertainly at him. One figure in the back coughed, smiled, and nodded, as if to encourage Hale to keep going.

Dyson stepped up close behind Hale, he put a large hand high on Hale’s back, his thumb settling over one shoulder and his index finger settling on the other so that he held the back of Hale’s neck in an easy grip, and put his other hand on Hale’s arm. “Brother,” he whispered harshly to Hale, “what are you doing? This wasn’t the speech.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Hale’s voice rang loudly across the room, and Evony’s eyebrows settled into an angry, tense arch over her eyes. “It wasn’t the speech, until Evony –“ Hale stabbed his finger in her direction again, and Dyson could tell by the steel in his voice that he was serious, and in the slight tremble of his frame that he was livid, “ – stole Dr. Lauren Lewis, the Ward of the Ash, from the Light!”

Outcry broke the ranks of the Fae that witnessed this inauguration gone awry. Shouts of incredulity sounded, and murmurs of dissonance, anger and distrust rumbled through them, like a symphony of chaos, a mad cacophony of affirmations and denials. It was louder, and harsher, and more immediate than the Blood King, who had followed his protégée upstairs to witness his rise to power, thought it should have been, and this troubled him even more than the furious declaration of war.

“I did not!” Evony’s voice rang clearly above the din, indignant and offended, and she stepped forward to defend her position. Dark guards, previously hidden in the shadows, clamored in around her protectively, surrounding her on every side and glaring fixatedly at the crowd around them, alert to any threat to their Morrigan. “How dare you accuse me!”

The figure in the back chuckled, his voice deep and resonant, gleeful and anticipatory at once. Trick stared through the rising, pushing crowd, trying to catch sight of whatever Fae made such a strange and discordant noise. One of the Morrigan’s guards plucked at her elbow, cut her off in the midst of another outraged rebuttal to the argument lost in the midst of the crowd’s angry shouts and cries, and whispered something to her that started her trembling with rage.

“Quiet!” Trick’s voice boomed over the chaos of his establishment. Tension ran like live wires throughout the room, and he had to shove his way past a number of angry, pumping elbows to get to the stage upon which Hale, Dyson, Evony and her guards stood. But the room quieted for him, after a moment, and when he stood on stage, even the murmurs of dissent had hushed. Hale stared at him, his dark gaze furious, but conceding. Evony’s mouth was pressed into a thin, white line and the color had risen in her cheeks, making her even more beautiful in her fury than she deserved. Dyson looked at a loss, but ready to defend his friend, his Ash, and his King. Trick felt other eyes on him too, eyes that made the blood in his veins boil and the acid in his stomach curdle. But he could not find those eyes in the angry, expectant crowd before him.

“Explain yourselves, before we descend to war and madness!” Trick barked between Hale and Evony, his eyes on neither and still, subtly, searching the crowd for those eyes that made the madness in him rise. His voice hadn’t sounded so kingly in centuries… he had forgotten how good it had felt to sound so authoritative.

“You heard me. The Morrigan, leader of the Dark, has dared to take one of mine, Dr. Lauren Lewis, Ward of the Ash,” Hale’s voice was softer, though not by much, and tight with rage. He was close to spitting with it.

“Show me proof!” The Morrigan spat back viciously. Trick thought he’d never seen the Morrigan so undone with anger before. Hale glared back at her, his nostrils flaring and his mouth drawn and tight. Dyson mirrored his aggression, he snarled at the dark-haired beauty of the Dark, his teeth bared and his eyes darkening to the obsidian and gold of his Wolf’s for an instant.

“You can’t!” The Morrigan shouted back at him, “Because there is none!”

Trick turned on her, the eyes that stared him down bored into his skull and screamed against her lies. Kenzi had found Lauren at the Dark compound. Bo had said so, and Bo told no lies. His thoughts felt flat, one-dimensional like only bare truth could be.

“But your people have attacked my compound!” Evony’s voice fell to a hiss, her eyes glinted sharply, almost madly, in the Dal’s festive lighting. “War has been initiated. But not by my hand!”

Wild laughter bounced along the walls of the Dal, free of constraint, free of careful deliberation or patience. But no one seemed to notice. And the echoes of it chased any and all rationality and control away, out the windows and doors, so that the Dark guards that had broken sacred law by swarming the Dal on Inauguration Day had to break Fae law again to protect their Morrigan in a battle that no one would later remember which clan had initiated.

 


	32. Chapter 32

Tamsin had taken the wheel, Kenzi had taken the passenger-side window. Maia flinched at the reckless driving and hairpin curves the Valkyrie had always been prone to when she was in a hurry, but clamped her mouth shut while Kenzi and Tamsin traded plan details and curses over the screech of tires and the furious honks of the other cars on the road. The Dal was a way-station, and they’d been parked only a couple streets over, which meant they hadn’t been particularly close to or far from the Morrigan’s compound. But by the time they swerved to a stop, Maia felt like a puddle of ooze and wanted to puke with the car-sickness Tamsin’s driving had given her. She doubled over once she’d managed to slide out of the truck, coughing and panting and sucking in lungfuls of fresh air and cursing Tamsin under her breath, while Tamsin clapped her on the back and Kenzi grabbed at her arm to pull her along.

“We’re not there yet, girlie, now nut up,” Kenzi whispered roughly, but not unkindly, to her, and Maia nodded and panted and shuffled along after her. “But speaking of there,” Kenzi’s voice sharpened, got louder, and Tamsin turned to stare at her, “where the hell are we?”

Maia straightened, her face still pale and her lunch balled up in her throat, and stared around her. She’d been to the Dark compound once, with Seth, a long time ago, but that wasn’t the reason she recognized the sprawling metropolitan area they’d stopped in. Glass buildings towered around them, fancy and glittering in the early afternoon sunlight. The sounds of rushing traffic and the curses of other drivers swarmed around Maia, and she smiled half-apologetically at them as they drove past. The bright, saturated colors of boutiques, restaurants and other enticing shop signs glared at her from every angle.

“Funny, thought you’d recognize the place,” Tamsin sniped back only half-sarcastically, but she slowed to allow the humans to catch up to her. “Did you think it would be a good idea to walk right through the front door? The slightly-unaligned Succubus’ human, a disgraced Dark Valkyrie and the human she swiped from under the Morrigan’s well-powdered nose,” Tamsin laughed, this time, sarcasm dripped from her tone, “yeah, no one would even notice.”

“Back entrance,” Maia supplied unnecessarily, and Kenzi gave her a dark look in response. Maia only grinned back at her and shrugged her shoulders.

“Right, Maia and I will take the back, you’ll take the front. Distract the guards with your sharp wit and not-so-dazzling smile,” Kenzi ignored the dark look Tamsin shot her and continued on blithely, “and we’ll grab Hotpants and meet you back here. Good?”

“Not good,” Tamsin replied sharply, “I’m not welcome at the Compound right now. I’m under ‘investigation’,” Tamsin spun to display her air quotes, “I show up and alarm bells go off. They catch you,” the Valkyrie twisted again to raise a pointed eyebrow at Kenzi, “the gig is up and we’re ‘Fae-ed’, as you like to so elegantly put it.”

Kenzi stopped dead in her tracks. She knew where she wasn’t wanted, hated feeling like a liability. But if she could help get Lauren back, then she’d prove she could be more. And Lauren had become a friend, and Kenzi never left friends behind. She stared hard at Tamsin’s back until Tamsin stopped, and Maia stopped with her.

“So I stay in the truck? You think you can do this on your own?” her words held a note of challenge, and the barest hint of resentment. Tamsin only shrugged.

“Either way, we can’t get caught,” Maia looked between the two women uneasily and shrugged again, helplessly, “we wouldn’t have gotten this far without you.”

But Kenzi had already made up her mind the minute they’d discovered Lauren had gone missing, and that didn’t change, whether she was wanted or not. “Back entrance, then,” Kenzi muttered darkly, and they moved on.

Tamsin led them through the streets, thumbs in her pockets and always a foot ahead of the girls that trailed behind. She brought them in and out of alleyways until both Maia and Kenzi felt lost in their own city, and out into a wide, deserted street. Buildings still towered on both sides, but the violent sound of rushing traffic was muted here, somewhat. A dumpster buzzed with flies in the far corner, and brilliant flashes of light told Maia they weren’t far from a busy street.

Wordlessly, Tamsin strode up to a loading platform. It stank of cigarettes and gasoline here, and old, trampled butts littered the floor. She took a moment to check that her gun was in its holster under her jacket, tensed, then put both hands on the heavy steel door’s handle, and pushed.

The door opened with a loud, ear-splitting creak.

“They never did lock the damn door…” Tamsin slid into the half-shadows between the loading dock and the abandoned hallway, then hesitated. Her watch glimmered in the light that filtered through, and Tamsin turned to look at Kenzi, her green eyes hard and flashing. “We can’t wait much longer, Kenzi. Call her again.”

Kenzi had been trying, she’d been calling with no answer since they’d left Tamsin’s truck some half hour ago, and Bo had plenty of time to have caught up to them by now. Still, Kenzi bit her lip, speed-dialed her best friend and held the phone to her ear. Maia stared at her anxiously, Tamsin stared at the floor, scuffed and stained, and listened for any sound, any movement, from within or without. Still, there was no answer, and Kenzi waited until Bo’s voicemail picked up the call and offered to take a message.

“Maybe you should wait out here,” Tamsin’s eyebrows were scrunched, her mouth drawn into a tense line. She was used to working alone, knew how to extract a target if she worked by herself. Having two humans along for the ride complicated things: it meant extracting three, rather than one, and provided a distraction and liability Tamsin didn’t need to worry about.

“No,” Kenzi’s voice was resolute. She stuffed her phone in her back pocket, and there was a cold glint in her pale eyes that Tamsin recognized. Determination, but also that lonely acknowledgement that the only person she could count on was herself. “She’ll be here, she’ll just be here late. But we have to do this with or without her.”

She should have done this alone. She should have tied them up and left them in the truck if it had come down to that. Her gut told her so, and Tamsin always followed her gut. But she was so tired of being alone, and having Maia to boss around and take care of, and be bossed around by, had been so refreshing, and having someone by her side giving her a sense of belonging and direction had spoiled her. So when she slid into the cold, menacing shadows of that abandoned, derelict hallway, Kenzi and Maia followed.

Tamsin didn’t need to see to know where she was going. She’d been here enough times, dropping off targets and collecting bounties for the Dark, that she knew this part of the compound by heart. She even knew in which room they would be keeping Lauren. If she was still there, they weren’t torturing her. Yet. And considering how valuable she was to both sides, they probably wouldn’t be. There were far more reliable ways to entice cooperation, and humans were simply too fragile to torture in any of the ways the Dark, and Anne in particular, found at all entertaining. When her eyes had finally adjusted to the dimmer interior of the back entrance, she found it just the way she remembered it.

The entrance had been grimy and worn, scuffed along the floor and walls, with dings in the heavy steel door and cracks in the paint and deep dents in the drywall that suggested heavy shipments being moved in and out of the building. It was a clever cover, but one that only went about as far as five feet into the building’s back hall. The door that hid amongst the shadows here was smaller, and this time, locked. Tamsin toyed with the knob, she could break it, but it might set off an alarm, call attention to them, and if it were just Tamsin, it might not matter.

“You should go home,” she offered one last time without looking at the girls that crept behind her, an expression of doubt twisting with the severity of her sternest game-face. If anything happened to Kenzi, Bo would kill her. If anything happened to Maia… well, she supposed the only person she had to answer to was herself. Tamsin ignored the persistent question of which was worse.

But they both only rolled their eyes at her, and Kenzi pushed ahead of Maia to test the knob that Tamsin had already found locked.

“Girl, you been a bounty hunter for how long, and you don’t know how to pick a simple lock?” Kenzi’s voice was light and teasing, her earlier resentment forgotten in the face of being proven useful again. Tamsin only rolled her eyes at the little human and stepped back, allowing her the space she needed to inspect and coerce the knob to turn. Tension, and something else, roiled in her gut. She had a bad feeling about this, but struggled to contain it, because Lauren was important, and getting her back was important. Maia shifted impatiently beside her, and Tamsin almost put a soothing hand on the girl’s shoulder before containing herself.

Kenzi fiddled with the bobby pins she’d pulled out of her hair, the keyhole was just large enough that she could slide the pointier ends in and jiggle the lock. Within a few minutes, the tumblers clicked slowly, arduously, and the knob loosened almost imperceptibly.

“Ta-da!” Kenzi’s whisper was softer, lower than it had been, and she gently pushed the door open a crack. Fluorescent white light spilled through in a thin rivulet along the scuffed floor, and Tamsin nodded, her expression tightening with her mounting discomfort, and took point. She waved for Kenzi and Maia to stay close behind her, and slid the door open a little more, just far enough to admit a single slender body at a time. When they were all through, she pulled the door carefully, so that it didn’t click quite closed.

It was a T-juncture, if the door had been open. But the contrast between the two hallways was so vast, they might have easily been from different buildings. Where the loading dock and hall had been dirty, scuffed and used, this one was pristine, white, brightly lit. There was nowhere to hide here, and Tamsin felt the empty irises of security cams turning and focusing on her if she held still too long. She moved along, her movements fluid and quick, her gait assured, like she belonged there, and only glanced behind her once to see Kenzi and Maia doing the same. The room they wanted would be down the right-hand side, third door on the left. If Tamsin had been blindfolded and spun in tight circles, she knew it was possible that she could get lost.

“What is this, the Matrix?” Tamsin thought it was Maia’s reedier voice that whispered sharply and sarcastically from somewhere behind her, and she would have waved violently for her to shut up if she didn’t think it would attract too much attention from the little black security cameras that scanned the hallway in controlled, mechanic, uncomprehending sweeps. Still, something was missing. The hallway was quiet, ghostly. The cold emptiness of it shivered against Tamsin’s skin and crept under the nape of her top to slide down her spine chillingly. That bad feeling curled and twisted again in her gut. She wished she had left Kenzi and Maia in her truck six streets away, but now it was too late and she was sliding open the door three down on the left.

It was dark inside when they all tumbled in.

And it was empty.

“Shit, you think they moved her?” Kenzi shivered visibly in the blanketing darkness. The only light in the small, boxy room was the buzzing fluorescent bulb in the back, it flickered and jumped as if it were dying, but Tamsin knew it was a subtle technique to daze and disorient prisoners.

“No,” Maia’s voice sounded strangely loud. She’d straightened, taller than Kenzi, shorter than Tamsin, and looking pale and almost sick in the weak and stuttering light. “This was too easy, wasn’t it?” She stared at Tamsin through small eyes, her glasses flashed spastically in the seizing electric light, like tiny, soundless explosions that lit across her small face. Tamsin grit her teeth and stared back. “There should have been guards.”

Tamsin touched her index finger to her nose, a gesture she’d picked up from Maia over the past week, and shoved between her and Kenzi to stand at the door. Heavy footsteps rushed down the Spartan white hall.

“You were saying?!” Kenzi gasped in a rush of air. The room was empty, save for the table and chair that were nailed to the floor, and the light that feinted death on the wall. Still, she scrambled across the room in search of a weapon. Geraldine was left behind, at home, at the clubhouse. Maia answered with a tense, harshly croaked “Derp,” before Tamsin managed to push them together beside the door’s inside seam. When it crashed open, they’d be concealed behind it. Both girls heard the click of her weapon being unholstered, and another, when she took the safety off.

And then the door slammed open, and Tamsin was grateful for the crashing sound of the guard’s boots as they entered the room, because Maia squeaked and the door banged loudly into the casted arm she raised ahead of her like a shield.

“Hello Meatheads!” Tamsin grinned at the guards, waved at them, her voice falsely cheerful, her smile acidic, and her gun hidden amongst the shadows that flickered and jumped on every surface around her. “Thought you’d bring the whole family. Where’s Meathead Jr?” Tamsin drew deeper and deeper into the room, her attention fixed wholly on the pair of enormous, heavily muscled Fae that advanced on her. Both of them looked big, and stupid, their arms were as big around as Tamsin’s torso, and they had to crouch to get in through the door. They both growled. From behind the door, Kenzi mouthed ‘Ogres,’ at Maia, who nodded grimly, and glared at Tamsin.

“Cameras showed three of you, lady,” Meathead One advanced a little toward Tamsin, his voice deep and gruff, his words carefully pronounced, like he’d rehearsed them before barging in, “Where’re your friends?”

“I ate them,” Tamsin shrugged nonchalantly, her face so straight it almost made Maia laugh. And then she rotated her shoulder, dipped it so that only her wrist and arm moved, and fired two shots into Meathead Two, one between the eyes, another between the shoulder blades, so fast Maia wasn’t sure it had even happened, at first.

But Ogres were faster than they looked. Before the second had dropped to his knees, the first darted into action. He shoved his partner aside and charged at Tamsin, and was on top of her before she’d had a chance to adjust her aim. A pair of enormous, beefy hands slammed down onto Tamsin’s shoulders, they squeezed, and Maia heard the sickening crack of bones breaking, and the clatter of Tamsin’s sidearm as it fell to the floor.

She leapt out from behind the door screaming. Everything after that was a blur, the pounding agony of her cast crashing over the Ogre’s bald brick of a noggin, Tamsin’s breathless scream for her to just run. The Ogre’s eyes, lit with anger as he turned to face Maia. He was so tall, he hadn’t seemed so tall when she’d been hiding behind the door and Tamsin had been the one to face him. He filled her entire field of vision, and his legs were still planted like enormous tree trunks below her eyeline. Kenzi’s fingers around her wrist hurt, her shoulders jerked disconnectedly with the powerful yank Kenzi gave her. And there was the rushing, heavy sound of boots drumming around the corner. Tamsin was still screaming for them to get out. Her shoulders hung at an odd angle, her face paled and her brilliant green eyes darkened to black.

Kenzi could see the shock on Maia’s face. The Ogre was massive, a mountain of flesh and bone and muscle. She’d met one once, with a sweet face and a voice that was as soft as it was deep. But this one didn’t have a sweet face and he cracked his knuckles with relish as he turned to deal with the puny human who dared to challenge him. Tamsin was screaming for them to get out, and Kenzi was sorry she’d mistrusted the Valkyrie. She’d risked her life to save theirs, and was giving it away to keep it that way.

She yanked Maia out of the monster’s shadow, it was like pulling a dead weight, but panic had settled in and the adrenaline rush had lent a powerful strength to her small frame. The sound of heavy boots was rushing like driving hail down the hallway, but Tamsin’s face was already changing. Dark circles were spreading under her eyes, the brilliant green of her irises washed away by the power she invoked. Kenzi knew they wouldn’t get out of the building without encountering the armed guard that came to back up their colleagues, but Tamsin was prepared for that. Kenzi pulled and yanked and shoved to get Maia out of the room, it was all she understood from the Valkyrie whose arms hung limply at her sides like broken wings, and a wave of Dark Fae soldiers was rushing at them just as she cleared the doorway. Three doors down and to the left, the door whose lock she’d picked was still a sliver open, pale, artificial light ribboned through like a beacon. The soldiers were descending on them, and it was like running through sludge, her feet felt leaden and dragging Maia along behind her didn’t make it any easier. Maia’s shrill, furious screams tore at her hearing.

And then a shriek cut the air, and for a moment, Kenzi thought it must be one hell of an eagle that made such a beautiful, bloodcurdling cry, but remembered Tamsin, a door back and to the right. Like they’d hit a wall, the soldiers slammed to a halt. Some broke into the door, some stood in a dazed line, throttling the hallway, the rest were too hidden for Kenzi to see when she craned her neck backward and twisted to pull Maia, kicking and screaming, into a firmer hold.

“Come on – “ Kenzi was gasping for breath, though they had only run a few feet, but her pulse was hammering and her throat was constricted with fear and regret, “Come on, Kid. We have to go.”

Maia’s face was wet with tears, she struggled violently against Kenzi, her casted arm flailing in the air and her other tearing at Kenzi’s grip around her waist. She gnashed her teeth and screamed for Kenzi to let go, her voice hollow and harsh, and bit when Kenzi wrapped another arm around her shoulders. But her teeth slid uselessly over Kenzi’s shirt, too uncoordinated to clamp down on anything usefully. Cool air against her wrist indicated she’d ripped through the fabric though.

It was a struggle, but Kenzi managed to haul Maia down the hallway and throw her through the third door on the left. She could hear a door slam open on her right, reinforcements from the other side of the building who caught the tail end of Tamsin’s garbling shriek. Her will and her Valkyrie could not hold out much longer, Kenzi could see their Ogre pushing through the doubt she assaulted them with, his fingers wrapping around her throat, his powerful grip snapping her neck like a pencil, every time she blinked.

But they were through the dingy intake hallway, and the further they got from Tamsin, the weaker Maia’s flails became, until her voice turned hoarse and she gasped for breath, and Kenzi was half-carrying the thin, shuddering girl and half tugging her along.

By the time the heavy steel door slammed shut behind them, Kenzi had dragged them both to the end of the alleyway. Her legs felt like jelly, but it was less like running through muck and more like trudging through water. By the time the heavy steel door slammed open again, they were too far away to hear it, and Maia heaved a heavy sob, and they both knew that Tamsin had proven her merit unequivocally by sacrifice. Kenzi drove them back to the clubhouse, and Maia was empty, speechless, unresponsive, her expression passive and her tears drying on blotchy red cheeks.

 


	33. Chapter 33

It had descended so easily, so effortlessly, into chaos and madness at the Dal. Bloodshed and violence had conquered rationality, and Dyson’s instincts to stay and fight had almost overwhelmed him. His Wolf had been excited by the scent of blood, and he had to struggle to maintain control. He wanted to fight, wanted to tear the Morrigan and her guards to shreds, and then to turn his teeth and claws and muscle on any Fae that had dared to look at him sideways, but he had a job to do. And the only instinct that overpowered his thirst for blood had been the one to protect his King.

Trick had called the Wolf to him, and Dyson had torn himself from the vortex of the violent battle that had erupted in one of the most peaceful way-stations in the county to come to his side. The madness in the Blood King’s eyes had indicated that Trick was fighting a furious battle of his own, but his sense, for the time being, had won out. And though Dyson’s Wolf howled to join the battle, he satisfied himself with decimating any Fae that dared to stand in his way as he cleared a path for the Blood King to run. Hale followed close behind, the shrill, barely audible notes of his battle song a painful, maddening throb in the periphery of Dyson’s sensitive hearing. Even Hale’s own guard had succumbed to the call for battle inside the Dal, and Dyson had to drag the Siren along behind him.

The air cleared a little once they’d clattered down the steps into Trick’s lair. Dyson shook his head violently, trying to dispel the last ringing notes of Hale’s whistle from his hearing, and Hale doubled over, his face twisted in pain and confusion though Trick could see no wound or injury on the Ash’s straining body.

“We have to get out of here,” Trick rasped breathlessly at them. He was wild-eyed and trembling, but he grabbed his pack and made to shove both Dyson and Hale toward his fireplace. They complied with little resistance, and didn’t seem surprised when a pulled lever opened a hatchway behind the smoldering remnants of Trick’s last fire. They stumbled through, still trying to shake off their battle-fever and the persistent, nagging hatred and anger that had infected them in the main chamber of the Dal.

The secret passage was cramped and hot, just large enough for the Blood King to creep through, but almost too small for Dyson and Hale’s larger, more robust frames to squeeze in. Still, the focus it took for them to crouch and crawl through the passageway, and the distance that began to yawn between them and the battle at the Dal, helped to clear their crazed minds. And the farther they crawled, then climbed, the clearer Dyson, Hale and Trick could see.

When they finally clambered through a trapdoor at the end of the tunnel, and found themselves blinking in filtered sunlight and stumbling out of a Fae barbershop, Trick, Dyson and Hale all knew they’d been manipulated, and they all knew of a single Fae who had the means, and the motive, to manipulate them all into a clear declaration of war: Bo’s own father, who had taken Lauren from Hale for safe-keeping and had promised Hale that the Dark were planning an attack on the Light all along.

Hale squinted through the sharp sunlight, doubled over with his hands on his knees, while the last heavy, heady throbs of madness cleared away. Dyson was pacing between him and Trick, clearly agitated, and Trick panted, his face held up to the sky and his palms facing upward as well, and closed his eyes.

“What the hell was that?” Hale’s voice was a croak, he cleared his throat and stood straight again, and Dyson stopped pacing to stare at him. Trick also turned his face to look pointedly at Hale.

“Did you ever find out what kind of Fae Bo’s father was, when you spoke to him?” Trick was focused, Hale could see that in the tense line of his mouth and eyes, and in the rigid stance he took. Hale sighed, and shook his head.

“No. We spoke through an intermediary. One of his.”

“Bo’s father contacted you?” Dyson’s words were soft, but sharp. He stepped between Trick and Hale, every line on his face was thrown into sharp relief by the powerful sunlight that beat down on them. The shadows across his face were clear cut, and intensified the anger in his expression. “Why the hell didn’t you tell us, man?! You knew we were looking for him!”

Hale had to shake his head again, his priorities slowly rearranging themselves as the situation came clearer and clearer to him. Bo’s father was important, but more important was that war had been declared between Light and Dark, regardless of who had initiated it. And Bo and Kenzi would be at the Dark Compound now, rescuing – or at least trying to rescue – Dr. Lauren Lewis.

“That’s not important right now,” Hale’s voice was soft too, but still authoritative. Dyson’s nostrils flared in disagreement, but Hale raised a hand and pulled out his cellphone. “Kenzi and Bo are trying to extract Lauren from the Dark Compound. They need to know what’s going on.”

Dyson shrugged, his anger and irritation still clearly expressed in every line of his body, and snorted. “Yeah?” He watched Hale dial a number into his phone, then turned away, “So do I.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

By the time the truck had rolled across the dirt driveway and slid to a stop in front of the clubhouse, Maia had stopped crying. Kenzi put the truck in park and pulled up the handbrake wordlessly, they’d sped through the streets back home that way, in relative silence, with only the mumble of white noise on the radio and Maia’s shuddering sobs for company.

Now, Kenzi shifted in her seat to look at the girl sitting next to her. Two women in less than a month had died, both of them important in varying degrees to her. Kenzi had an idea how that felt, she’d lost people she’d promised to protect, people she’d come to care about, before. Sean had been sweet, he’d kissed her before he’d died, and Kenzi had been so sure they’d saved him, before a disgruntled businessman had shot him in a dark, dirty alleyway at night. Clive had been human, but she’d promised that he was safe, not long before he’d died too. She’d liked them, cared about the poor shmucks, but there had been months between them, and she hadn’t cared about them the way Maia had cared about Seth and Tamsin.

Maia was curled up in the seat next to her, staring out the window blankly. Her tears had dried on her cheeks, but Maia never bothered to wear makeup, so the only indication that she’d been crying was the swollen red rim of her eyelids and the pink splotch of her nose. Carefully, Kenzi stretched an arm across and rested it gently on her shoulder. Maia promptly shrugged it off, but turned a little in her seat so that her back wasn’t to Kenzi anymore.

“Come on, Kid. Let’s go inside. I’ll make you some coffee,” Kenzi offered hopefully, but Maia didn’t respond. Her gaze was focused on some distant spot, far away from where they sat. The little ballerina goth sighed, unsure of what to do or say. Her phone was going off, buzzing silently in her back pocket. Maybe it was Bo, finally, wondering where the hell they all were and what the plan was for getting Lauren out of the Dark Compound. It was Hale.

“Hale,” Kenzi greeted into the phone, her voice a little brighter than she’d expected it to be, “aren’t you supposed to be getting crowned Emperor of the Light or something right now?”

“Kenzi!” Hale’s voice was heavy over the line, Kenzi heard the trouble in his voice, and the relief that she’d picked up, “where are you, Lil’ Mama? No – wait,” he was jumping over his own words, with barely the space for Kenzi to cut in, “just get Bo and get the hell out of dodge, Girl –“

Tension flooded Kenzi’s system, “Hale, slow down, what happened?!” Maia was looking at her now, her eyes a little bleary but her attention focused and her expression tight.

“You don’t wanna know…” Hale sighed, his voice tense and tinny over the line, but he drew a deep breath and exhaled it loudly over the speaker, “War broke out between the Light and the Dark. It’s not safe for you right now, or Bo. Did you leave the Dark Compound yet?”

Now it was Kenzi’s turn to sigh. Maia was staring at her intently, eavesdropping on the conversation and trying to get a sense for what was going on. But Kenzi just felt lost.

“I’m at home. We left the Compound already, Lauren wasn’t there. And Bo never showed up.”

“Good,” Hale breathed over the phone. The line was getting static-y again. “Good,” he repeated, his voice a little firmer and more solid this time.

“Hale,” he’d sounded like he was about to talk again, but Kenzi interrupted him, “Bo isn’t with us. I don’t know where she is. Maia’s with me and Tamsin -,” Kenzi hesitated, her gaze flickering from the dashboard to Maia and back again, “Tamsin’s dead,” she mumbled quietly into the phone. She could hear Hale draw in a sharp breath over the line, and it got quiet again. When she snuck a look at Maia, she was staring out the window again, her expression determined, resolute, and angry.

“A-ight. Hang tight there, Lil’ Mama. I’m comin’ to get you,” when Hale’s voice crackled again through the line, he sounded determined too. He always came through for Kenzi, was always there for her when he could be. Kenzi wondered again where the hell Bo had disappeared to, why it wasn’t her calling Kenzi and telling her to stay put, that she’d be coming for her, to be there and keep her safe.

Kenzi mumbled a quiet ‘okay’ into the line before they hung up. Maia had unbuckled her seatbelt, and had already popped the door open and clambered out of the truck.

“Hale’s coming to get us,” Kenzi supplied unnecessarily as she clambered out too. She made to shut the door, but Maia was already on her side of the truck and jammed her casted arm between the door and its frame. It bounced back and, quick as a flash, Maia had pushed Kenzi out of the way and swung herself into the driver’s seat.

“Maia – ,” Kenzi planted her hands on the wide-open windowsill, but Maia had already started the car and put it in reverse.

“No.” Maia stopped, finally. She bit her bottom lip, brushed the back of her hand under her glasses and ran them across her eyes, then shoved them roughly back in place before turning to face Kenzi. “You can wait for Hale. I’m going back for Tamsin. I’m not leaving her there.”

Kenzi was stunned. Tamsin was dead, there was no way she’d still be alive. There had been dozens of Dark Fae guards at the compound, swarming through the hallway, and both Tamsin’s shoulders had been broken. She couldn’t have kept up their doubt for long, not on all of them at once. She hated to admit it, but Tamsin was dead.

“Tamsin’s dead, Maia,” Kenzi repeated in a harsh whisper. Maia stared back at her, her dark eyes hard and cold and her mouth stretched into a thin, trembling grimace.

“She’s a Valkyrie, Kenzi,” Maia’s voice was soft too, but Kenzi could hear the hard determination in it, “Valkyries have more than one life, and Tamsin wasn’t done. She’s still out there,” Maia’s voice cracked, she drew in a breath, bolstered herself. Her jaw clenched and unclenched. “I have to find her.”

“The Fae are at war,” Kenzi reminded her, her words gently rebuking, but she didn’t loosen her fingers from the truck’s windowsill, “and the Morrigan’s been gunning for you and Tamsin for weeks now. It’s too dangerous. And Maia,” Kenzi hesitated, looked up at Maia’s face, hard and sharp-edged in the afternoon sunlight, “Tamsin’s gone. Even if she gets another life, how are you going to find her?”

Maia’s lip twitched. She turned away for a second, her fingers loosening and tightening over the steering wheel compulsively while she considered Kenzi’s warning. But Tamsin had risked a lot to protect her from the Morrigan, had worked hard, despite her orders not to, to find Seth, even if it had been too late. She’d given her a home when Maia had none, even if that dingy little apartment had become a dingy old truck, and had given her own life when Maia’s had been threatened. And Maia had already left family behind once. She wasn’t going to do it again, ever.

“When Bo got kidnapped, the day after she saved you that first time,” Maia turned again to look at Kenzi, her fingers tightening again resolutely over the wheel, “you went after her. Even if it was dangerous. Even though you didn’t have a clue what the Fae was waiting for you on the other side.” Maia’s voice was soft, but her meaning was solid. Kenzi understood what Maia was saying, understood that need to take care of the people that took care of you. She’d gone after Bo at the glass factory, stood in the shadows while the Pain-Eater sank his fingers deep into Bo’s head, and called and screamed and yelled for her to fight back even when she’d been scared. She’d been in deep danger then, deep in unknown territory, surrounded by superhuman monsters that would have killed her if Bo hadn’t made it through. They’d saved each other.

“Tamsin’s out there,” Maia started again, her voice soft, but her eyes fastened on Kenzi’s resolutely, “I have to find her, and I have to bring her back. If the clans are at war, she’s not safe, and it’s my turn,” she faltered, visibly exhausted but still clinging stubbornly to the idea of protecting Tamsin, “it’s my turn to take care of her.”

“It’s not safe, Maia,” Kenzi repeated quietly, though she knew already that she’d lost. Maia gently pried Kenzi’s fingers from the windowsill and slid the truck out a few inches.

“No,” Maia answered, then peeled back and around and shuddered to a stop to put the truck back into drive. Kenzi turned with the truck and followed it a few feet down, until Maia poked her head out the window, “with the Fae, it never is. I’ll call you when I’ve found her. Good luck.” Then the truck’s ancient engines roared, and dirt and dust kicked up by the tires blinded Kenzi, and Maia disappeared in a cloud of it onto the street. Kenzi rubbed the dirt out of her eyes and watched the pick-up shrink into the distance and disappear over the hill.

 

 


	34. Chapter 34

She had been blindfolded for most of the trip. The SUV they brought her in with must have been soundproofed, she couldn’t hear other cars on the road, or the sound of trains, of other people, anything. They must have made a beeline, too, because they took far too many left and right turns, and it had left her feeling lost and disoriented. But she was gentle with her, promised her no harm, and there was nothing in the woman’s voice that ever made Lauren believe any different. Hale had promised it was for her own safety, promised her it was important to the long game that she cooperate and comply.

Once they’d arrived, she’d brought her inside – there was a distinct change of temperature to the building, and the echoes that bounced across the walls had told her it was a wide open space. She thought they might have taken the long way to this room, but she couldn’t be certain. They’d crossed marble and wood floors, but only this room had been padded by a thick, deep carpet. Once they were inside, though, and the door was shut, she’d taken off the blindfold. Her fingers had been gentle, and careful not to tangle in Lauren's hair. She’d given her a cool glass of water, offered something else to eat or drink, but Lauren refused. Not because she didn’t feel safe, but because it had been a long trip, and she was tired.

The enormous windows that walled the office told her it was close to dawn. They’d been traveling for hours, then, it hadn’t been very late yet when Lauren had left the Dal, and Bo, sleeping peacefully on the couch, surrounded by friends. She wondered if Bo had woken up yet, how she was feeling, if she’d asked for her.

“I suppose you can’t tell me where I am?” Lauren ventured carefully, her voice soft, but carrying clearly across the room to her guardian on the other side. The woman smiled cautiously at her, shifted her stance a little, and nodded for Lauren to sit.

“It doesn’t matter,” the woman’s voice was equally soft, and friendly. It was a little scratchy around the edges, and Lauren thought she recognized it, maybe. A little. She ran a hand through long brown hair and nodded again for Lauren to sit down, be comfortable. So Lauren sat on the long, earth-brown couch arranged close to the middle of the room. Other earth-brown love-seats were arranged close to it, and an enormous, beautifully crafted dark-wood desk crowned the room, with its handsome matching wood-and-leather office chair backed against the western wall. The grey light that shone sleepily through the window behind it glowed in a fine, dusty mist over the furniture, barely visible under the warm orange glow of antique lamps. The woman moved to Lauren’s side, then sat beside Lauren, and her hand rested in the narrow space between them. “This is only temporary, Dr. Lewis. Just a rest stop.”

“How long will I be here?” Lauren leaned in a little, rested her elbows on her knees and looked at her guardian. She looked like a woman in her late thirties, but she knew she must be older. She was Fae, and the lines that spider-webbed at the corners of her eyes and edged the sides of her mouth were the markers of a tired, careworn soul. Big brown eyes examined Lauren closely, and the hand that had rested between them moved to enveloped Lauren’s own. It was warm, and soft, and as gentle as the woman had been since she’d come to pick Lauren up from Hale’s office six hours ago.

“A few days. Two weeks at most. You’ll be safe here, Dr. Lewis. He won’t let anything happen to you.”

She never smiled. Her mouth was drawn down, but it wasn’t a mean frown, or an angry scowl. Her expression was only tired, and perpetually sad. She’d been through a lot, she’d been through something terrible. It was written in the lines scrawled across her face, and articulated through the tenderness of her touch. Lauren believed her, she felt safe. And she trusted Hale. And she recognized this woman with a strange sense of pity.

But Lauren frowned a little at her, feeling a little puzzled and confused. She hadn’t been told anything, only that this woman was here to protect her, that Hale needed her to stay somewhere safe, and hidden, and that someone would come to get her when ‘it’ was all over. And that she would be needed, for Bo’s sake, for Kenzi’s sake, and for her own. She wouldn’t have come so easily otherwise.

“Who’s ‘he’?” Lauren shifted a little in her seat and glanced around the room. It wasn’t a prison, it felt more like a safe-house. It was comfortable, if a little dark, but Lauren suspected it only felt dark because the sun hadn’t risen outside yet to spill brilliantly through the massive windows, and because the room had been decorated in rich shades of brown and cream. There was a large, flat-screen TV facing them on the north wall of the room. A counter with a sink and cupboards and a stove and oven were on the east wall, and on the south, where they’d come in through heavy wooden doors, were a coat stand, a small wooden chair, and a side table. She suspected the door in the north wall, beside the TV, led to a bedroom, perhaps a bathroom beyond that.

“He took me in two years ago. He looked out for me, he’ll look out for you, too. Because Bo loves you,” the woman answered softly. She looked tired, six hours of driving will do that to anyone, Lauren supposed. But her answers were vague, and her allusion to Bo made Lauren tense. The hand that enveloped hers squeezed gently, and a thumb ran across her knuckles soothingly before it slid back into the woman’s lap. The woman leaned back on the couch tiredly, and closed her eyes.

The dawn outside was rising. A pink glow was spreading across the horizon, the sky looked promisingly clear in the warm light that blushed across it. They were a story up, but the land around them was beautiful – rolling hills of grass and wildflowers for miles before a dense, rich wood crowded around them. It was still too dark to see much, but Lauren thought they might be the tall, kingly shapes of ash trees, and the occasional crimson stabs could be the distinctive signature of red maple.

“You never told me your name,” Lauren whispered. The woman’s chest rose and fell gently, she looked like she might be asleep, and Lauren didn’t want to disturb her if she was. One eyelid opened, and the big, brown iris focused on Lauren tiredly, thoughtfully, for a moment, before the woman mumbled back, “It’s Lou Ann. I thought you knew.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There it was, the last chapter of Where the Fae Sun Rises. It’s been a trip, I hope all of you have enjoyed it as much as I have! It was such a delight writing this sequel, it’s been sweet, funny, and heartbreaking, and I’m so proud and pleased to have shared it with you. So I want to say thank you, for the people who reviewed, who bookmarked and commented and favorited and kudosed. Your feedback, in whichever form you chose to present it, has been invaluable, insightful and incredibly gratifying. Thank you for all the support you’ve shown me, for the kind words, the conversations, and the fun. My favorite part of each week comes in the first few days after posting a new chapter, when the notifications for new subscribers, PMs and reviews start rolling in and I get to hear what all of you thought. With that said, I want to shout out a special thank you: to someone who has been supporting this project from Day One, who listens to me jabber on endlessly about Lost Girl without complaint, and is at least partly responsible for this story being posted on fanfiction.net and archiveofourown.com at all. I’m sorry there were no spaceships. Thank you, thank you, and thank you, to all of you.
> 
> Where the Fae Sun Rises has ended, but I’ve already begun to work on its sequel, the as-of-yet-unnamed Part 3 of Profaecy. You can see my updates on how that’s going on my profile page on fanfiction.net, I’ll try to post there with news at least once a month, time permitting. If you have any ideas or requests or just want to chat, shoot me a PM, I’d love to hear from you. You can also find me on doccubus.com, my handle there is also Serafaerosa. I lurk there, even if I’m not posting regularly. 
> 
> Thank you for all your support. It means the world to me, and sharing this little piece of my heart, mind and soul with all of you has given such light to my otherwise dull and boring life. I’ll see you all soon, I hope, with the first few chapters of Part 3 of Profaecy. Until then, keep the Faeth!


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